The renovation and expansion of the United Nations International School’s Manhattan Campus, the institution’s main campus located directly beside the East River, will provide a new theater, cafeteria, gymnasium and front entrance to the school that encourages the school’s commitment to academic excellence within a close-knit community while highlighting the campus’ location and views.

Project Facts

Completion Year: 2009
Project Area: 40,000 ft²
Number of Stories: 6

The project consists of several interventions to the existing brutalist building, completed in 1972. Small interventions in the interior of the building help to define “districts” within the K-12 building, so that each school, the Junior School, Middle School, and Tutorial House, has its own identity within a single building. The ground floor of the building is reconfigured to allow for eased pedestrian access from the street, and to provide river views from a new lobby and cafeteria. The interventions that require new construction such as the new Kindergarten wing and the new Athletic Center are constructed from a lightweight fiberglass and glass wall system to contrast the heavy precast concrete facades of the existing building.