Archinect - News

KPF designs Columbia University's first purpose-built, all-electric research lab building

2024-04-10T18:28:00-04:00

Kohn Pedersen Fox has designed a new state-of-the-art research and academic facility that will deliver Columbia Universty’s first purpose-built, all-electric lab building for the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

The project will augment Columbia’s Plan 2030 for achieving campus-wide net-zero emissions by 2050. It boasts a system of air source heat pumps (ASHPs) that manage the building’s temperature controls in unison with a high-performance facade that offers an optimized window-to-wall-ratio under 50%.

Credit: RGB, courtesy Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF)

“As an all-electric research lab building in a cold climate, the biomedical research building presented a particular challenge given high heating loads brought on by the ventilation requirements of the building’s program,” KPF’s Director and Head of Sustainability, Carlos Cerezo Davila, said in a project announcement. “This required us to design a building where the architecture and the mechanical systems work toge...

Renzo Piano Building Workshop puts the finishing touches on 600 W. 125th residential tower for Columbia University

2023-12-27T18:36:00-05:00

Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) is progressing towards the completion of its new 600 W. 125th Street off-campus Harlem housing project for Columbia University in collaboration with CetraRuddy.

Once complete, the 34-story dorm is set to host 142 apartments for graduate students and faculty with another 5,000-square-foot McDonald’s retail location included at the ground level. Thornton Tomasetti is in charge of delivering the building’s facade system. The construction has been engineered to meet LEED v4.0 Gold certification standards and culminates in a total of 177,000 square-feet, including its terraced podium.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Renzo Piano Building Workshop (@rpbw_architects)

The project is being realized just a few blocks south of the southern edge of Manhattanville, Columbia’s sometimes fraught 17-acre multiphase development that has to date included three other RPBW buildings (the Jerome L. Greene Science Center, Lenfest Center f...

Get Lectured: Columbia University, Fall '23

2023-10-02T17:19:00-04:00

Our Get Lectured series offers a semesterly look at the on-campus public programming offered by different schools of architecture. Today, we continue with a look at the events taking place at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) this Fall.

This year’s theme is organized under the title ‘Affirmations.’ The school shares: “AFFIRMATIONS is an eight-month series of discussions with designers, researchers, planners, preservationists, and activists to affirm and interrogate how to think and redesign the built environment at the intersection of climate, ecological, societal, bodily, and technological crises and defiance. As a project convened to interrogate and affirm how to think and practice the reworlding of societies and ecosystems now, AFFIRMATIONS is intended to align evidence and aspirations.”

Lecture poster design by Nick Sheeran, courtesy of Columbia GSAPP.

September already saw a packed slate of discussions and lecture presenta...

Inside three upgraded Columbia University science labs by Shakespeare, Gordon, Vlado: Architects

2023-07-24T11:52:00-04:00

Shakespeare, Gordon, Vlado: Architects (SGVA) has completed a series of research laboratories for Columbia University. Initiated in 2018, the project aimed to “modernize and repurpose” Columbia’s existing facilities to accommodate the expanding needs of the university's biological sciences, chemistry, and physics departments.

Physics Lab. Photo credit: Alexander Severin

The three projects centered on a chemistry lab at Havemeyer Hall, a biochemistry lab at Fairchild Center, and a physics lab at Pupin Hall. Each laboratory project involved the complete renovation of the existing spaces along with “innovative design concepts to facilitate the new and future goals for scientists and their teams in advancing their research.”

Chemistry Lab. Photo credit: Alexander Severin

Havemeyer Hall's chemistry lab was transformed into a state-of-the-art 2,800 square-foot research facility, outfitted with a Biosaf...

Columbia GSAPP establishes new James Stewart Polshek Scholarship in honor of its former Dean

2023-02-01T13:31:00-05:00

Former Columbia GSAPP dean James Stewart Polshek has been posthumously honored with a new endowed scholarship in recognition of the commitment to design excellence and social causes he embodied while helming the school for fifteen years.

The Ennead founder passed away in September and was subsequently remembered with a foundational gift of $125,000 from the firm that was meant to keep alive his enduring legacy as both an architect and educator. The new $350,000 total fund will thus be given in perpetuity to an M.Arch student in their final year of study whose work demonstrates the intellectual rigor and social concern Polshek strove for beginning with his appointment in 1972.

During his tenure in Morningside, Polshek was instrumental in adding degree programs in planning and preservation to the then-named School of Architecture. He also helped to establish the...

Criticism around U.S. News Best College rankings targets a culture of deception at the top of higher education

2022-09-12T16:16:00-04:00

The annual U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges list has just been released, opening up a fresh channel for the ongoing debate over the value of and methodologies used in ranking institutions of higher education.

A focal point of the 2022 rankings is Columbia University, which dropped from 2nd to 18th place after being a mainstay in the top ten for several decades. The decision by U.S. News to demote the Ivy League institution came after the publication of a damning investigation from mathematics professor Michael Thaddeus wherein he outlined a deliberate fabrication of statistics meant to game the already flawed and disputed methodology. The scandal is notably the second in recent memory after a 2012 investigation uncovered similar tactics at George Washington University that went on for a period of decades.

A look at the other top-ranked schools in the 2022–2023 National Universities list with academic degrees in architecture offers a reflection of similar rankings, such as Bes...

Andrés Jaque appointed as new Dean of Columbia GSAPP

2022-08-18T19:05:00-04:00

Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) has appointed architect, curator, and artist Andrés Jaque as its next Dean. He replaces Amale Andraos, who stepped down from the role in May 2021.

Jaque received his Ph.D. and MArch from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid. He has been involved with GSAPP since 2013, where he began teaching advanced design studios. He directs the school's Master of Science program in Advanced Architectural Design, to which he was appointed in 2018.

Aside from his work at GSAPP, Jaque is the founder of Office for Political Innovation, an international architecture firm based in New York and Madrid. His practice has been recognized and part of collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago, along with other exhibitions at institutions arou...

DS+R’s Columbia Business School building opens in Manhattan

2022-02-26T09:00:00-05:00

The important next step in Columbia University’s aggressive campus expansion project has been inaugurated this week with the opening of its new Columbia Business School, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with FXCollaborative, in northern Manhattan.

The school’s fourth incursion into the blocks north of 125th Street marks the end of the first phase of its controversial Manhattanville development scheme.

Columbia Business School and The Square. Photo: Iwan Baan.

Kravis Hall, 12th Avenue Retail facing Riverside Drive Viaduct. Photo: Iwan Baan.

Earlier pushback against the two-decade-long effort had been unable to derail the CU’s largest-ever expansion, which has been steadily taking form after a series of community reinvestment efforts brokered between the school and its neighbors in the mid-2010s.

Construction on the new school building began in 2016 after the firm won an international competition for the $600 million project in 2011.

Kravis Hall Facade. Photo: I...

GSAPP establishes $1 million Norma Merrick Sklarek Scholars Fund to support DEI in graduate study

2020-10-29T12:54:00-04:00

Dean Amale Andraos announced this month that GSAPP will commit $1 million to establish the Norma Merrick Sklarek '50 B.Arch Scholars Fund, intended to promote diversity, inclusion, and equity towards access for graduate study.

Sklarek was the first Black woman to become a registered architect in the State of New York. After graduating from Columbia University, she worked at the Department of Works for New York City and later accepted a position at SOM before moving to Los Angeles for a position at Gruen Associates.

While at Gruen, Sklarek was named the firm's Director in 1966 before transitioning to work at Welton Becket's firm as the organization's Vice President. Moreover, Sklarek became the first Black woman to receive a fellowship by the AIA in 1980 after which she founded Siegel, Sklarek, Diamond with Margot Siegal and Katherine Diamond.

According to Columbia University, "the Norma Merrick Sklarek ’50 B.Arch Scholars Fund will be used over the next three academic years to suppo...

Columbia University launches new school focused on climate change

2020-07-10T14:44:00-04:00

Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger has announced the creation of the new Columbia Climate School, the first new school at the university in 25 years. The school will focus on research initiatives targeted toward generating scholarship and pedagogical momentum around the issue of climate change. The school, according to Bollinger, will represent part of the university's core focus on the "intersection of knowledge and change."

In a statement announcing the creation of the school, Bollinger explains, "The School, at least at the outset, will be somewhat unconventional in its structure, building capacity from a hub of existing, world-class research centers and programs, including the Earth Institute and its many centers: the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), the Center for Climate Systems Research (CCSR), Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), and more."

Alluding to the...

Columbia University submits plans for 34-story Harlem residential tower

2019-12-09T14:21:00-05:00

Columbia University plans to bring a 34-story residential tower to West Harlem amid its massive campus expansion. The project at 600 West 125th Street will span just over 175,000 square feet and have 142 units for students and faculty, according to an application with the city Department of Buildings. It will replace a decades-old McDonald’s that closed a few months ago.

The tower, slated for completion in 2022, aims to "reduce demand on the local housing market," The Real Deal quotes a Columbia University spokesperson.

Researchers at Columbia University create digital wood using 3D-printing

2019-01-07T13:59:00-05:00

Researchers at Columbia University have invented a digital "wood" using 3D-printing technology to replicate the material's external and internal structure. They believe the technique could be applied to other anisotropic materials, which are especially difficult to replicate due to their complicated material distribution.

To begin, the researchers used destructive tomographic imaging to capture extremely-thin slices of olive wood cut by a CNC. In total, 230 images were taken and sent to a Stratasys J750 PolyJet printer, which is capable of printing objects using voxels. Engineers were then able to print a resin block mimicking the unique grain pattern of olive wood.

In the study's abstract, the authors note the technique's success, observing that "the final printed object closely resembles the original wooden block both in its external appearance and in its internal color pattern, as confirmed when the block is cut or broken." They hope the process will be employed in the digital re...

Sylvia Lavin appointed as Professor of Architecture at Princeton University

2018-03-02T16:26:00-05:00

Princeton University School of Architecture announced today that Sylvia Lavin will be joining their faculty effective July 1, 2018. Lavin is currently a Professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA, where she was Chairperson from 1996 to 2006 and the Director of the Critical Studies M.A. and Ph.D. program from 2007 to 2017.

Lavin received her Ph.D. from the Department of Art and Archaeology at Columbia University in 1990 after having received fellowships from the Getty Center, the Kress Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. Her most recent books include, Kissing Architecture, published by Princeton University Press in 2011 and Flash in the Pan, an AA publication from 2015.

Professor Lavin is also a curator: a recent exhibition, Everything Loose Will Land: Art and Architecture in Los Angeles in the 1970s, was a principal component of the Pacific Standard Time series supported by the Getty Foundation and traveled from Los Angeles to New Haven ...

Columbia GSAPP launches the nation's first Ph.D in Historic Preservation

2018-01-16T15:32:00-05:00

The Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (Columbia GSAPP) announced today that it will be launching a new Ph.D. Program in Historic Preservation—the first of its kind in the U.S. GSAPP has been a leader in the field of preservation education since it established the first Master in Historic Preservation program back in 1964. The introduction of the new program will set the standard for doctoral level education, provide intellectual leadership by training future generations of preservation scholars, and expand the discipline’s range.

"The Ph.D. in Historic Preservation recognizes the fact that the profession has matured into a vibrant discipline, with a specific body of theoretical and practical knowledge on how to learn from and intervene in historic buildings, cities and landscapes, such that they not only retain their values as historical documents but also serve as resources for designing the future" the school said in their announcement....

Get Lectured: Columbia GSAPP, Fall '17

2017-09-06T15:18:00-04:00

Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Fall 2017

Ready or not, the start of the new school year is coming up. Back for Fall 2017 is Archinect's Get Lectured, an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back regularly to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss.

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

Columbia University GSAPP has a packed schedule of events for Fall 2017, including lectures, conferences, exhibitions, and more.

LECTURES

Sept 11, 6:30pm
Lacaton & Vassal: Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal
Response by Amale Andraos

Columbia GSAPP at the Chicago Architecture Biennial
Sept 15, 1-4pm
Making Books Now
at Chicago Cultural Center

Sept 18, 6:30pm
URBANUS: Meng Yan
Response by Adam Frampton

Sept 25, 6:30pm
Ensamble: Antón García-Abril and Débora Mesa
Response by Mimi Hoang

Oct 2, 6:30pm
Rosanne Hagger...

Get Lectured: Columbia GSAPP, Spring '17

2017-01-18T17:19:00-05:00

Archinect's Get Lectured is back in session for Winter and Spring 2017. Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back frequently to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss. Mark those calendars!

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

The Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation kicks off their Spring 2017 events with lectures, exhibitions, a symposium, book launches, and discussions — including a timely series called “The First 100 Days”. Starting January 20, the series will provide opportunities for students and faculty to discuss, organize, and plan for the changes to come during the Trump administration.

Unless noted*, lectures take place on Mondays at 6:30 p.m. in Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall.

Jan 20*, 1 p.m. at Ware Lounge, Avery Hall
The First 100 Days: ...

Get Lectured: Columbia GSAPP, Fall '16

2016-08-29T15:00:00-04:00

Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Fall 2016

Gearing up for another eventful school year this fall? Archinect's Get Lectured is back in session. Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back frequently to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss. Mark those calendars!

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

Next up is the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Kicking off next week, their Fall '16 Lecture Series includes lectures featuring Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, Design, Bitches, Caruso St John, and SHoP Architects' Gregg Pasquarelli; symposia like “The Museum Boom in China” and “Exhibition Models: Curating Architecture”; upcoming exhibitions such as “The Other Architect”, and more.

Here's a closer look at the lecture poster.

For more info...

Following a landmark decision, graduate students will now be able to unionize

2016-08-24T17:17:00-04:00

The National Labor Relations Board decided in favor of Columbia University graduate students and teaching assistants in a landmark case over their right to unionize. The decision will affect private universities nationwide and overturns a 2004 Brown University precedent, which asserted that students were not employees and therefore did not have the right to collectively bargain.

The decision was preceded by a long legal battle between the Graduate Workers at Columbia group and the university. The students complained about a lack of job and wage security, late paychecks, poor medical coverage, and a host of other issues. Columbia University argued that students "have a primarily academic relationship with the University and therefore are not employees."

h/t the Columbia Spectator

Interested in other labor-related issues? Check out these past articles:

Get Lectured: Columbia GSAPP, Spring '16

2016-01-25T14:00:00-05:00

Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Winter/Spring 2016

Archinect's Get Lectured is back in session. Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back frequently to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss.

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

Our next featured poster comes from the Columbia University GSAPP. Upcoming events are listed below.

Jan 25
Joshua Bolchover and John Lin / Rural Urban Framework
Response by Amale Andraos

Jan 29
Architecture in Print: New Approaches to Graphic Design
Yoonjai Choi, Glen Cummings, and Neil Donnelly
Response by Michael Rock and Susan Sellers

Feb 1
Zhu Pei / Studio Pei-Zhu
Response by Jeffrey Johnson

Feb 4
Les Levine: Bio-Tech Rehearsals 1965–1975
Les Levine with Michelle Kuo, Felicity Scott and Mark Wasiuta
Exhibition Opening and Discussion

Feb 8
Frank Barkow / Ba...

Easing from school into practice: GSAPP launches "Incubator"

2015-12-03T13:25:00-05:00

Being a fresh graduate in the lamentably real world is perhaps one of the steepest transitions an architect ever faces, which is part of the inspiration behind Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation's newly launched Incubator program. Billing itself as a kind of professional bridge building/idea lab initiative, Incubator helps alumni network with professionals in the technological industry in a dedicated interdisciplinary co-working space located in The Bowery in New York City. The first iteration of Incubator features eleven groups including FAMILY + PLAYLAB + POOL, IrisVR, and KOSMOS.

The groups are developing projects that encompass a swath of contemporary architectural concerns and territories, including public spaces, critical discourse and publishing, virtual reality, urban regeneration, and digital technology, with the goal of helping Incubator's members entrepreneurially explore ties between technology, culture, and architecture.

...

Get Lectured: Columbia GSAPP, Fall '15

2015-09-11T14:08:00-04:00

Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Fall 2015

Archinect's Get Lectured is ready for another school year. Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back frequently to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss.

Our next featured poster comes from the Columbia University GSAPP with their Fall '15 Core Series.

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

Columbia GSAPP has a calendar full of upcoming events! Free and open to the public. Find each event's time and location in the PDF link below.

Sept 14
Kersten Geers and David Van Severen / OFFICE Kersten Geers and David Van Severen

Sept 18
Information Fall-Out: Buckminster Fuller's World Game
Symposium and Opening

Sept 21
Kate Orff / SCAPE

Sept 25
Imprecise Tropics
Camilo Restrepo in conversation with Barry Bergdoll (Columbia Art History) and Clara Iraza...

Graham Foundation Announces 2015 Individual Grants

2015-05-27T19:21:00-04:00

Olafur Eliasson, Charles Rice and Iwan Baan are among the artists, scholars, photographers, and other architecturally-oriented professionals who are being awarded individual grants by the Graham Foundation this evening. The awards ceremony and reception, which is being live streamed as of 6 PM CDT, is being held in The Madlener House, the foundation's headquarters since 1963. This year, the foundation is awarding $490,000 in grants for 63 projects to individuals who "advance new scholarship in the field of architecture, fuel creative experimentation and critical dialogue, and expand opportunities for public engagement with architecture and its role in contemporary society." The list of presenters at the ceremony includes Noritaka Minami, Candace Taylor, Lluis Ortega, and Tiffany Lambert, all of whom are 2015 grant winners.

There are five principal categories in which the awards have been granted: Exhibition, Film/Video/New Media, Public Program, Publication, and Research. Some of the...