HIGHER EDUCATION
Pratt Institute, Myrtle Hall, Brooklyn, NY
DESIGNING FOR LEARNING
Although Think! maintains a varied and general architectural practice, projects for educational institutions have increasingly become a major part of our expanding portfolio of work. These projects have ranged from the design of classrooms to more complex programs and from simple renovation projects and upgrades to significant new academic buildings. With all of these projects we have worked hard to balance competing priorities in order to create buildings and spaces that that truly work and which enhance the learning process.
The key to our success, and our work over multiple projects with the same institutions, is our ability to engage in thoughtful conversation with our clients to find the underlying issues in each project and then to use our skill and experience to translate these issues into practical solutions that respond to our clients’ needs, extend their mission and advance the vision of their institutions. We have found that the best solutions need big ideas to guide them – even if the projects are small.
Marty Kapell
Principal marty@think-arc.com (646) 688-5898 x 201
Jack Esterson
Principal jack@think-arc.com (646) 688-5898 x 203
PRATT INSTITUTE, DEPARTMENT OF FILM AND VIDEO
Pratt Institute’s state-of-the-art 15,000 sq ft Department of Film and Video Department features 3,000 sq ft of soundstage space including an infinity green screen, a 96-seat screening room, a sound recording and mixing studio, and two high-end post production suites. The facility also includes classrooms, edit suites and faculty offices.
A stunning series of perforated, sculptural metal panels wrap around the entrance lobby and envelop rooms requiring sound-proofing and darkness. A floating bridge connects classrooms and offices on the second floor. Interstitial spaces throughout serve as dynamic social areas for students to foster a vibrant and collaborative filmmaking environment.
PRATT INSTITUTE, MYRTLE HALL
Pratt Institute, the world-renowned arts and design college in Brooklyn, commissioned Think! to design this new 120,000 sq ft seven story academic building to house 12 departments, including the School of Digital Arts, Admissions, Financial Aid, Public Relations, The Pratt Center and other student services and creative departments. The building’s approach to its context is reflected in its masonry facade which relates to the 19th century buildings of Myrtle Avenue, while the facade facing the campus opens up as a transparent louvered wall system reflecting Pratt’s position as a leading design institution.
Myrtle Hall has allowed for significant improvement and re-allocation of space in Pratt’s other academic buildings. Consistent with Pratt’s campus-wide commitment to sustainability Think!’s design utilizes a combination of high-tech and lowtech sustainable strategies including green roofs and photo voltaic technology which lead to Myrtle Hall becoming the first institutional building in Brooklyn to achieve a Gold LEED certification.
PRATT INSTITUTE, GAME ARTS
The Pratt Institute Game Arts program is a new department in the Institute’s School of Art. Think! was tasked with creating a new environment for this program that reflected the lastest technology and which would foster collaboration and creativity. The new space, which is located within the Think! designed Myrtle Hall, provides spaces for both group and individual learning supported by a variety of technical spaces including a motion capture studio, a spatial computing room and resource center.
DUANE L JONES RECITAL HALL, SUNY OLD WESTBURY
The Duane L. Jones Recital Hall is one of the major performance and presentation venues on the campus of State University of New York at Old Westbury. At 400 seats the 6,700 sq ft renovated space provides a new home for events ranging from dance and theater performance to academic activities such as lectures and ceremonies.
The Recital Hall was a strangely asymmetrical concrete and sheetrock construction that created an out-of-kilter relationship between the audience and performers on stage.
Without decreasing the seating count, Think!’s design reshaped the space inserting a curving wood wall that improved the focus of the venue towards the stage, reestablished the room’s symmetry, improved its acoustics to performance standards and created a warm and aesthetically unique space within an otherwise severe institutional building. A new retractable screen, catwalk system, control booth and lighting system were integrated into the design to provide flexible technical support allowing it to function both as a performance and academic space.
TABAS AUDITORIUM, BANK STREET COLLEGE
A complete renovation and upgrade of an existing academic auditorium into a state-of-the-art music and dramatic performance venue for this prestigious school. The project encompassed all new floor, wall and ceiling finishes, audio-visual and lighting systems, new seating and projection booth and acoustical treatments. Using a modest palette of materials (including Home Depot bamboo floor for the main architectural ceiling element) the space was transformed into a lively and modern space at the heart of the institution.
MCVICKAR HALL, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NY
McVickar Hall is the Columbia Alumni Center; a welcome center and space on campus for Columbia alumni as well as the home of the Office of Alumni and Development and other offices, such as the Columbia College Alumni Association. Originally built as an apartment building [and later used as the Columbia University School of Social Work] the structure presented may challenges to the design team because of its age and condition and its restrictive floor-to-floor heights. By creating a series of double height spaces linked by interior stairs, Think! overcame these obstacles to create a building that carefully melds its classically inspired exterior with a modern and functional interior design.
COMMUNITY CENTER, THROGGS NECK, NY
The Throggs Neck Community Center was commissioned by the New York City Housing Authority to provide educational and recreational opportunities for residents of the Throggs Neck Houses which date to the early 1970s. The building houses a collection of classrooms specifically designed for various types of specialized instruction and a full gymnasium that is convertible to an auditorium for community events. The design of the building is intended as a light and modern contrast to the red brick of the surrounding residential buildings.
HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY, PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
A new 55,000 sq ft performing arts building on the Hofstra University campus is home to the school;’s theater and music programs. The building includes a flexible black box theater with scenic shop and support areas, orchestral rehearsal spaces and faculty offices. The building was designed to distinctly express each of these components and great effort was made to acoustically isolate each from the other.
HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY, SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
Hofstra University wanted to repurpose the empty Hagedorn Hall into its School of Education. The building’s existing circular plan and an unarticulated façade made it difficult to find its entry and to find a way through the building.
The new design was intended to give the building and the school a strong identity visible from the campus and from the neighborhood street on which it is located. The total gut renovation includes new classrooms, library and academic facilities. Electronic signage was used on the façade and throughout the building to aid in wayfinding. The signage helps activate public spaces and long corridors with information about programs and schedules as well as thoughts and ideas. A variety of public meeting spaces are interspersed throughout the building to encourage informal learning and discussion.
BROOKLYN COLLEGE, CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
In the mid-1990s, Brooklyn College, one of the senior campuses of the CUNY system was coming to terms with the disadvantages to their commuting student body due to a lack of access to computers. Phase One of the Computing Café, housed in a 7,000 sq ft vacant cafeteria, was an attempt to provide greater access to computer technology, but not as the uninspired environments that typified public colleges. The chief librarian’s vision was modeled during the rise of the internet café, an enlivened, comfortable and socially engaging environment that allowed single study, pairs and larger groups. In this project, we celebrated and exposed the supporting technical systems instead of concealing everything behind ordinary hung ceiling. Soon after its completion in 1996, the Café became the most popular study and meeting spot on campus.
KUPFERBERG CENTER FOR THE ARTS, CUNY
Think! was appointed to renovate and bring cohesion to five disparate performing arts venues at CUNY’s Queens College to create a unified arts precinct for the campus. Through an integrated and phased renovation and expansion of each building Think! designed a series of large scale and bold architectural transformations that included new glass entry pavilions. In addition, a common palette of modern materials that vary slightly at each venue, highly visible signage and environmental graphics and a unifying landscaped design all contribute to craft a new audience experience and create an identifiable cultural heart for the campus.
The venues include The Colden Auditorium, the Goldstein Theater, the Colden Amphitheater, the LeFrak Recital Hall/Aaron Copeland School of Music and the Godwin Ternbach Museum.
ABOUT THINK!
Think! Architecture + Design is a Brooklyn based practice established in 2013 with the goal of providing our clients not just with superiorly designed projects but to deliver them in a way that works better for them and our team.
As the name implies, the work we do is thoughtful. Our work strives for success, beauty and satisfaction, not as the starting point of a design, but as the result of a long and focused process of investigation and discovery. By searching for the underlying issues embedded in each project, and through an openness to the widest range of possibilities, we endeavor to craft design solutions that result in a unique and intelligent resolution of need, desire, function and circumstance.
As a firm we are generalist and we’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunity to work on higher education buildings, theaters, schools, offices, hospitals and houses among many other things. These varied experiences have allowed us to specialize in the design process itself rather than focusing on any one type of program or building – applying the wide range of our diverse experience to the wide range of projects that have come our way. Being generalist gives us the freedom to work with questions rather than the answers of an expert. It allows for the openness to possibility that eschews assumptions and fixed knowledge and searches for meaning and understanding, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Think! is currently comprised of 23 professionals with a high proportion of experienced senior staff. All Think! projects are developed using Building Information Modeling [BIM] software, which we also require of our consultants, to achieve the highest level of coordination and quality control.
As we design compelling architecture we always keep our clients’ vision and mission in the forefront of our thinking, while our day-to-day decision making is guided by pragmatic considerations and budgetary restraint. With every project we endeavor to design projects that are just right.
T: (646) 688-5898
E: info@think-arc.com
W: www.think-arc.com