41 Cooper Square - New York City, NY
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 40° 43.731 W 073° 59.422
18T E 585259 N 4509147
This 2009 building is part of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art...known as The Cooper Union.
Waymark Code: WMCC7Q
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 08/21/2011
Views: 8
41 Cooper Square serves as the Cooper Union's New Academic Building. It houses the Albert Nerken School of Engineering with additional spaces for the humanities, art and architecture departments. It is also NYC's First LEED Platinum Academic Building.
Although the building occupies a rectangular space... it is by no means boxy. It has the appearance of being built over a triangular glass pyramid. Windows are few...but also strangely shaped. There is a huge "gash" down the center of the building which winds like a river to the right of the building with a deck partially hanging over the "gash" at the top.
Wikipedia (
visit link) adds:
"Both Mayne and Cooper Union wanted to create an iconic building that embodied the institution’s values and aspirations as a center for advanced education in art, architecture and engineering. It was to be a vehicle for cross-disciplinary dialogue among the three disciplines, which had previously been housed in separate buildings.
Mayne designed the building from the inside out, starting with a central atrium, referred to as a vertical piazza. The atrium plays the role of the public square in the building where social interaction can occur. Its form was created by carving out program space and circulation paths and is contained and accentuated in a steel lattice envelope that reaches the full height of the building. Classrooms, offices, studios, and laboratories surround the vertical atrium and are connected by three separate staircases.[9] The grand staircase, which welcomes students and visitors, starts from the ground floor and terminates at the fourth. Two secondary staircases cross the atrium like bridges and connect the fourth to sixth and seventh to ninth floors. To move from the sixth to seventh floor, one must use the fire stairs. The discontinuity of the staircases was intended to promote physical activity and to increase meeting opportunities. The main elevators are treated in a similar fashion where stops are limited to the first, fifth and eight floors, encouraging occupants to use the sky bridges and stairs. Mayne concentrated the program of student activities on the same floors that are serviced by the skip stop elevator.[7]
The entire atrium is made evident on the façade where a large cutaway reveals the piazza to the public. Student circulation is made visible and from inside, Peter Cooper Park and the Foundation Building become the focus. The exterior façade is made up of a high performance stainless steel curtain wall that wraps the entire building. This custom facade by Zahner is densely perforated except in certain rectangular areas, so that the visual effect is a series of rectangles shapes scattered across the surface of the facade. [10] It is made up of operable panels that can open and close depending on environmental conditions. At the building entrance, the metal curtain is slightly lifted to draw people into the lobby.[7]
The ground floor is kept transparent to maintain a visual connection between the public and the public programs of the building. Retail spaces and an exhibition gallery can be seen from street level. There is also a board room and two-hundred-seat auditorium on the lower level that houses public events.[11]"