41 Cooper Square Social Analysis: David Diez
Writer: David Diez from Miami Springs; I am a student at Florida International University, four years along a six-year Master of Architecture (M.Arch) degree. I have a passion for design and understanding the built environment, and I have spent the past couple of years developing my talents in art, photography, writing, and interning for a Miami based architecture, interior design, and construction management firm. I have spent nearly my whole life in Miami, FL, and I hope to work as a licensed architect in my home state in the future.
University: Florida International University
Instagram Username: @santi__diez
41 Cooper Square Social Analysis
As a building, standing out in the New York City is a difficult task; however the Cooper Union hosts a new building that is living up to the challenge. The 41 Cooper Square was designed by Morphosis Architects, and commissioned by The Cooper Union as an addition to their campus in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York[1]. The design of this academic building started in 2004 and finished construction in 2009, but not without controversy from local residents[2]. Introducing the design to the city had some tentative on approving of its unusual typology, though after construction Mayne understands that now residents appreciate the rough cut form as reflecting the character of the neighborhood. Replacing the existing school of arts building, 41 Cooper Square presently holds to its original ambition of housing all three of the Cooper Union’s main disciplines of art, architecture, and engineering. The program of the building houses classrooms, exhibition gallery, auditorium, lounge areas, multi-purpose space, and retail store-front. The new academic facility is situated across the street and down the block from The Cooper Union’s first academic center the Foundation Building, so as to provide improved facilitation of academic coordination and collaboration on campus (Figure 1). Although designed for a private college, 41 Cooper Square performs to engage with its urban context in the same attitude as the school has held in New York since its founding. The design of the building is intended to aid in The Cooper Union’s vision of being the intellectual and cultural center of the city. Despite its large scale and the vast amount of programmatic needs of the facility, the building as a whole is developed from a sensitive approach that successfully links school function and public engagement.
Morphosis Architects, led by principal architect Thom Mayne, designed the building to open towards the public square of the Cooper Triangle on 3rd Ave. In its massing and façade, there is a dynamic physical material reaction to meet the front face, shifting from a rectilinear rigid form towards a soft skin that is penetrated by formal movement in the center of the structure projected outward[3]. Dissimilarly to typical high rise structures in the area, 41 Cooper Square lets the public eye get under its “skin”. This is made possible when the metal mesh grating panels acting as a second façade are seemingly peeled and cut away, revealing another façade with glazed cladding as a framed view of the heart of the building. In this technique of a detached mesh façade, the most important space of the building is highlighted to the public. By seeing through a framed view of the interior program, the public audience recognizes the response of the building as a connector – a stage for passive social observation and intellectual connection (Figure 2). Not only does the façade opening cut allow for social observation, but also a display of the creative capital growing out of the school in the fields of arts, architecture, and engineering, through the building’s own iconic form and system of compositional, mechanical, and structural connectors.
Moving down the building, the translucent veil of the mesh façade reveals two more distinct layers that engage the sidewalk in unique roles. As the mesh façade travels toward the street it begins to lift up in order to create an overhang and sign frontage. Under this first façade layer is a network of vertical concrete supports that stretch down to filter in the pedestrian traffic below. These thin, diagonally oriented columns touchdown in single spots along the sidewalk and, allow for varied social space. Behind the network of columns is an almost completely transparent façade wrapping around a corner of storefront and the main lobby of The Cooper Union school. From the public area of the street, and the social space under the overhang, the interior is most visible at the busiest street side (Figure 2). Not only does this help make the building seem more inviting, but it also reflects the social function of the city at a micro scale. On approach, the building counter acts its massive footprint by allowing for transparency and providing several entrances around the exterior. The main entrance points towards the Foundation Building and provides a revolving door to anticipate a constant two-way flow of the school body (Figure 4).
The connection of exterior form and interior organization is centered on facilitating open ongoing conversations through active circulation of the student body. On every floor, including ground level, the program is arranged to increase contact with major social spaces. The entrance level provides immediate access to major functions of the school, leading entrants along its terrazzo floors to the open floor gallery viewing, then points to the grand stair directly in front view. Although this first level provides a large open floor plan with plenty of space to leisurely wander, there is a sense of demanded dexterity from the multiple views of long steep stairs punctuating the end of the lobby. The focal point of every entry path of the building is the grand stair that ascends four levels of the large central atrium. The athletic can easily ascend the steps, while there are elevators to service limited circulation, of which the more prominent lifts have a skip-stop pace to place users at the fifth and eighth event space floors (Figure 5). The placement of the wide steps calls for action from its users and works with the flexible form of the atrium to create a sense of fluid motion and informal meeting. The grand stair acts as a means, as architect critic and historian Marrikka Trotter writes in the Harvard Design Magazine article, of “kinetically connecting with the full impact and import of the design”.
At the termination of the grand stair is the fourth level, which houses a lounge area with a café paired with an exhibition space – not as a means solely of relaxation, but as a stage of relaxed exchange around a creative display. Throughout the lower levels are moments of relief in the sweep of upward movement, one of which is a an opening, made from the projected outline cut of the atrium, to view out of the layers of its façade on the city below. In each moment of relief around the open corridors of the atrium, the building constantly urges the users to engage in their surroundings, whether it is with the city, fellow students and faculty, or with the rough cut tectonics of the architecture itself. The rest of the atrium space is intended to be fully enjoyed by the physically active user. Each flight of stairs cuts through the void with varied edges and angles to maximize the varied directions of the user’s eye line. From the open corridors lining the area, the angular stairs create a mixture of procession that is highlighted by the natural light from above, calling for the peripatetic attention of viewers from any given floor (Figure 3).
The formal movement, scale, and materiality of the atrium and shifting floor plan work in unison to help funnel the action of the building program upward and out towards the street. From the edge of the stair opening, most of the major programmatic spaces can be seen through two long corridors. As students move in plan through the building, the major axis leads them from an expansive area of the stair paths, through compressed linear corridors, eventually to branch into the academic programs. To maximize the natural light of the program, most of the class rooms, offices, and mixed use space are lined along the outer edge with mostly glazed exterior cladding. In addition to the glass façade, further connection with the exterior is opened on the eighth floor with a large terrace that currently stands higher than surrounding buildings in order to provide extensive views of the city. The primary sense of purpose of the terrace is for release; a break in the façade and building structure, opening the formal outline of program, and for the mind and body – able to find rest in a garden area and relaxed movement around the largest floor area of defined public space above the first floor. Set apart from the primary volume of program, the terrace space helps to create a focal point in the dynamic movement that ties the rest of the building together.
Each ascending level funnels the central procession into a triangulation of slopes to maintain a constant periphery of action, till eventually the atrium rests at the highest level of the building. This level houses the art studios and is filled with bright natural light, in this way acts as celebratory of athleticism of both body and creative intellect. Intended as a place of imaginative exercise, it is also a space of speculation of the actions of the building at the end of the user’s procession. While meeting the needs of the ascending program, Mayne describes the vertical orientation of the interior as designed to perform as a “stacked piazza”. The various systems at work are set on a syncopated rhythm to engage with the attention of its occupants as an intellectual body of work. A shifting choreography of tectonics and materials contributes to qualities a transforming and deforming typology of the academic building in order to challenge the understanding of the students and faculty about built space. The polyrhythmic formation of systems is not the byproduct of an absence of rules based solely on compositional standards, but as a dance of multiple strategies that coalesce into singular moments within a shared environment of creative and informative interchange. Seemingly autonomous actions of the built materials along the atrium act to guide the rhythm of the users along an arena of social strategies, meant to pace and direct the circulation of the students towards a collective goal of developing a collective understanding of the world around them.
More than just a pretty face and a social hub, This building project also stands out on an environmental standard. “Green Manhattan” by David Owen states that the density and infrastructure of New York City is key to making it one of the most environmentally friendly cities in the U.S. per capita. Even as a singular building, however, 41 Cooper Square building pushes the envelope on green initiatives in an unprecedented category. The Cooper Union wanted to construct a building that qualified for at least a ‘silver’ rating of LEED certification, but now the new academic laboratory building stands as the first LEED Platinum Certified structure of its kind in New York[4]. Ultimately, 41 Cooper Square is a product of a conscious client and cutting-edge design using digital performance analysis and 3D modeling software. Some of the main components that improve the school’s energy efficiency and waste management include the situation of its urban campus, layered façade, and intricate mechanical systems.
As a part of a unique urban setting, 41 Cooper Square is strategically located within the campus city square to benefit from public connectivity. The largest scale of public connection is nearby subway stops, with the closest being Astor Place stop, coming within a three minutes’ walk across only three crosswalks en route (Figure 1). In addition, the city bus route has a stop right in front of the building on the four lane wide 3rd Avenue, with a few more surrounding the campus (Figure 1). One of the most important connections lies a block over with the Cooper Residence Hall, which provides most of the housing to the school’s students, who can also take advantage of designated bike racks near the entrance of 41 Cooper Square (Figure 1). Directly across from 41 Cooper Square is the Cooper Triangle park that contributes to the public’s 24/7 role in the heart of the school, and serves as an oasis of greenery within the surrounding downtown density.
From the start of the project, the massing and scale of the building was predetermined to suit the programmatic demands of three academic disciplines, merging three colleges into one structure. The massing was zoning dictated, extending to the minimum setback on all sides of the city block. Essentially the block and building are coterminous, which oriented two of the main focuses of the design towards a performative facade and the core as a vertical connective tissue[5]. The façade of the structure is double layered, first with clear window wall glazing as the main sealed envelope, and the second is made of perforated stainless-steel paneling (Figure 6). The second skin wraps around the entire building as a screen for light, with grid pattern of operable opaque and translucent panels that can adapt to shifting light conditions. The screen is built of smaller panels which are operable and can be controlled by the inhabitants of the classrooms and studio spaces behind them. The strategy of using a mesh-like screening took around 10% of the overall budget, but reduces operating costs by lowering heat radiation build up in the summer and insulating the exterior in the winter. To draw natural light inside, however, the mesh façade is evidently cut by the profile of a large atrium space running vertically through the center of the structure. Thom Mayne, Morphosis Principal, describes the core as a “vertical piazza”[6], intended as a bright circulation and social design strategy in reaction to the tight massing of programs. On its own, the white painted undulating spiral of stair cases helps radiate light throughout the interior and improve air circulation from the open ‘basement’ to the top floor ceiling (Figure 4 & 5). As a result of façade system and open core, natural light illuminates roughly 75% of the school’s frequently used spaces.
Further in the interior, 41 Cooper Square grounded in innovative mechanical technology, some of which includes efficient HVAC controls, water harvesting, and cogeneration system. Interior temperature and humidity control is managed by a BMS (Building Management System) that employs need based algorithms through on sensory technology. The actual temperature maintenance uses both radiant panels and air-handling units in a closed loop system, which is more efficient for keeping the temperature within a desired range[7]. Tied in to the temperature control, the rainwater collections system can reclaim up to 200,000 gallons of water from roof drains and mechanical A/C condensate. The water distribution primarily uses gravity, and supplies water to irrigate the 8th floor garden and 25% of the total building fixtures, and ultimately reduces the waste strain on sewers and polluted runoff into ground water[8]. In addition to the A/C and water systems, the cogeneration plant in 41 Cooper Square reduces local utility demands while reducing operating costs for producing both electricity and heat. The process allows for the heat energy byproduct of electricity production to be recycled for steam and hot water as a building utility[9]. From the cogeneration energy production, to the radiant panels, and exterior façade screening, these components operate on a complementary level that prove a 40% higher energy efficiency that 41 Cooper Square holds over other standard buildings of its type[10].
References
[1] About Cooper Union: History, Cooper.edu
[2]Thom Mayne; Principal, Morphosis Architects. Interviewed by Jesper Bundgaard,Louisiana Channel. Denmark, (produced by Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2014)
[3] Mayne, Thom. Fresh Morphosis: 1998-2004. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 2006.
[4] “Morphosis.com”, Morphosis Architects. https://www.morphosis.com/architecture/4/
[5]Mayne, Thom. On Building an Urban Campus. Parsons The New School for Design. 2010 http://www.newschool.edu/parsons
[6] Mayne, Thom. On Building an Urban Campus. Parsons The New School for Design. 2010 http://www.newschool.edu/parsons
[7] GMP Set - The New Academic Building of Cooper Union – Building Management System. Syska Hennessy Group, New York, NY, 2007.
[8] Reich, Holly. Cooper Union's Green Roof Catches Rain Water. Daily News [New York] 16 May 2012, Big Town Going Green sec.: 32. Print.
[9] Baglione, Melody. Building Sustainability into Control System: Cogeneration. The Cooper Union. New York City, New York. 2014
https://engfac.cooper.edu/melody/451
[10] Millard, Bill, MetaMorphosis: Thom Mayne’s Cooper Union. Design Build-Network Publications. 2010
