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CUNY New York City College of Technology (City Tech) Academic Building
SOURCES OF PUBLIC FINANCING New York State, CUNY New York City College of Technology (“City Tech”) now boasts a 365,000sf Academic Complex that significantly improves the face of the institution, creating a new campus gateway and enhancing its densely urban neighborhood. Located in Downtown Brooklyn, “City Tech” provides broad access to technological and professional education with an
The State of New York is the 100% funding source for The City University Construction Fund (CUCF), a public benefit corporation established by the New York State to provide facilities to support the educational purposes of the City University of New York (CUNY). The design team worked with several agencies over the course of a ten-year period to bring the project to fruition.
SUBMITTED BY Perkins Eastman
New Construction | Award of Distinction CUNY New York City College of Technology (City Tech) Academic Building | Brooklyn, New York
A New Identity is Created for the Largest Four-Year Public College of Technology in New York State.
The largest four-year public college of technology in Photo Credits | © Andrew Rugge
emphasis on applied skills and place-based learning. Spanning a full New York City block and anchoring a prominent corner, the 365,000sf building is the latest addition to Brooklyn’s expanding Tech Triangle—one of the fastest growing employment and innovation clusters in the nation. The building significantly improves the face of City Tech, creating a new campus gateway along a major thoroughfare, and enhances the surrounding urban context. As part of the new academic building design process, the design team was able to address City Tech’s unique mission as a senior technical college within the CUNY system, and changing academic curricula, with a dynamic mix of academic and clinical programs and a learner-centered design approach. The new facility houses biological sciences and chemistry laboratories; radiologic and medical imaging suite; nursing simulation and assessment labs; dental hygiene and vision care clinics; state-of-the-art smart classrooms; conference/seminar rooms; faculty offices; student life/recreation areas; 1,000-seat theater; and 1,000-seat spectator gymnasium. In addition, a wellness center and a CUNY Community Center reinforce City Tech’s commitment to fostering an atmosphere of inclusion and collaboration and a strong tradition of facilitating economic mobility to its diverse student population.
Interior planning is organized vertically and horizontally to distribute public, clinical functions, and shared classrooms. Heavily populated spaces are located lower in the building, with lighter-use clinical and office environments on the upper floors. To encourage stair use, the design incorporates internal stair connections with ample daylight. Student collaboration spaces and informal lounges were designed to encourage interaction, discovery, and the flexibility to meet changing objectives over time. These are complemented by amenities that encourage engagement and community. The bold yet contextual design for the New Academic Building at City Tech bridges academic programs with clinical experience, expands City Tech’s ability to prepare for a new generation of science and nursing leaders, and unifies and activates the burgeoning tech corridor that will continue to redefine Brooklyn. What is the greater social value of the project? Representing some 150 countries, 35% of City Tech’s students were born outside the US and 73% report another language than English as being primary. Against this diverse urban backdrop, the new academic complex importantly serves as a path to economic mobility for generations of students.
The building creates a new identify for the College and is environmentally responsible, achieving LEED Gold certification using sustainable strategies such as high-performance insulated glazing, energy efficiency, water use reduction, healthy material selections, maximized daylighting, enhanced commissioning, use of local and regional materials, indoor air quality measures, and LEED innovation. As part of the LEED Innovation credits, the College will provide a course highlighting global climate change resulting in current waste and water and energy practices and introduce students to innovative technologies to mitigate global climate change. Courses will also include basic principles of green design, including an analysis of the building itself. The design team deployed a number of biophilic design strategies inside and outside the classroom to help recharge students and improve cognitive performance by incorporating extensive natural light, long-views of the skyline, various opportunities for study, and changing visual patterns with light/shadow in the landscaped open courtyard. Designed into both single and multistory spaces, and combined with extensive internal glazing, this permitted “passive awareness” throughout the school, allowing students to quietly absorb activities while staying focused.
Building on themes of addressing outside student stressors, the building needed to not only provide a home base for students, but also be a place that physically and emotionally nourishes students. The organic sculptural theater design, with its complex diverse program goals, functions as a standalone facility open to the community within the main academic building. From the main lobby, the curved structure is prominently visible from the street level down to the gym below grade. The glazed channel glass façade creates a luminescent glow in the evening, serving as a beacon of light. The diverse program functions as a lecture hall, a performance space for drama and dance, as well as an educational lab for hands-on experience for the College’s Entertainment Technology program. Long lauded for its strong tradition of providing economic mobility to an extraordinarily diverse student population, City Tech has introduced a game-changer in this new technologically sophisticated building—one that will help generations of students compete as they seek to attain professional and economic success. “Recognized as the epicenter of STEM education in The City University of New York, with more than half of its degree-seeking students enrolled in STEM programs, City Tech now has a new space to match to match its aspirations.” says City Tech president, Russell Hotzler.
How does the project contribute to the life of its surrounding community? The project’s location near the foot of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges gave the College an opportunity to respond both to the phenomenal growth in industry and technological advances in its disciplines and the College’s increasing need for state-of-the-art instructional facilities to support its academic programs and Tech Triangle partnerships in one highly visible and prominent building. The building design captures the inherent value of access, transparency, and an activated pedestrian realm, celebrating the building’s powerful intersection of academics, employment access, and community through an open soaring glass “living room” atrium at the building’s corner. This space invites students and the community alike—providing rare access to Tech Triangle resources such as the College’s clinics, a wellness center, a 1,000-seat theater, an 800-seat spectator gymnasium, and a CUNY student outreach center. The building represents a cooperative effort between CUNY, New York State, civic leaders, and the design and construction community to improve the urban environment of downtown Brooklyn. Its strategic site prominently contributes to Brooklyn’s expanding Tech Triangle. City Tech meets a high standard of design excellence in both site response and internal planning and design. It creates an urban edge that communicates the positive impact of state-funded building design and emphasizes a commitment to community-building. The facade functions compositionally at different scales with expressive, multidimensional rhythms that showcase the activity within. The building establishes a contextual architectural response to its street condition while its dynamic shape, expressive detailing, and animated glazing systems provide a signature expression for the College in its urban downtown setting. Architectural features are meant to provide a sense of scale appropriate to pedestrians.. The College’s highly recognized Allied Health programs—most notably Dental Hygiene, Nursing, Restorative Dentistry, and Vision Care—are housed in a rectangular volume perched over numer
ous College-wide and community spaces that vary in form and fenestration. These include a dramatic sculptural and translucent curved theater and various student service spaces—all clustered around and above the “living room” atrium. In this way, the building’s internal academic functions are “on display” to the community and its occupants are constantly connected back to the urban context while going about their day. This transparency and design decisions create linkages with the community that reinforce the institution’s mission, history, and goals for the future. In an urban context that needs exemplars of community revitalization, the project’s visibility is an important marker for the community as it embarks on change and innovation. n
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