NYC’s Cooper Union Awarded LEED Platinum

Photos by Mario Morgado; Courtesy of the Cooper Union.

One of the oldest higher academic institutions in the United States is now also the first to receive LEED Platinum certification in New York City.

 

The nine-story, 175,000-squar-foot building at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art takes up a whole block and cost $150 million to develop. It features reconfigurable classrooms, laboratories, studios and public spaces. It replaces almost 40 percent of academic space and will house the engineering, humanities and social sciences departments, along with arts facilities.

 

Green features include an operable building skin made of perforated stainless steel panels that are offset from a glass and aluminum curtainwall to reduce the impact of radiant heat in the summer and provide insulation in the winter. A full-height atrium provides airflow and daylighting for building occupants, and a green roof provides additional insulation.

 

Radiant heating and cool ceiling panels were installed to improve energy efficiency and a cogeneration plant provides power to the building and recovers waste heat.

 

Thom Maye, design director of Morphosis, the firm also responsible for designing Emmerson College LA Center, University of Cincinnati Campus Recreation Center and San Francisco’s federal building, designed the building.

 

“When we planned Cooper Union’s new academic building at 41 Cooper Square, we challenged Pritzker Prize winning architect, Thom Mayne, to design an innovative structure that would inspire and contribute to the nurturing the exceptional, creative talent common among Cooper Union’s faculty and students,” says George Campbell Jr., president of Cooper Union.

 

The new facility will contribute to a 40 percent total reduction in carbon footprint at the campus, exceeding New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s call for a 30 percent carbon footprint reduction by 2017, Campbell says.