SOM has been selected by the City of New York’s Dept. of Design & Construction (DDC) to provide design services for the new Public Safety Answering Center (PSAC II). The facility is being designed to augment and provide redundancy to current 911 services, strengthening the City’s ability to maintain communication in the event of a natural disaster or large-scale emergency. The facility is being designed to continue operation under these adverse conditions.

Project Facts

Completion Year: 2015
Project Area: 550,000 ft²

The new 500,000 sf Public Safety Answering Center is to be located on a prominent parcel of land along the Hutchinson and Pelham River Parkways in the Bronx. The building’s size guarantees that it will have a major urban presence. This presents an interesting dilemma for a building that benefits from visual anonymity. The overwhelming functional requirements dictated a rational form, in this case a perfect cube. Taking cues from Michelangelo's drawings of Renaissance fortresses, the building is rotated on the site so that the cube appears as a diamond, with the corners facing the Hutchinson Pelham Parkways. This is common castle design, as it helps dissipate blasts and minimize frontage for assault.

The façade system itself is a serrated metal panel system of recyclable aluminum. The serrates continue the theme of approaching edges, and gives the building dynamism on the site - long sides are silver, short sides of the serrates are charcoal gray. This helps provide additional visual interest, some asymmetry and a rhythmic camouflage.