The 188,000 square foot New Northwest Corner Building designed by José Rafael Moneo, who’s Pritzker Prize-winning architect collaboration with the architects at Madrid’s Moneo Brock Studio and New York’s Davis Brody Bond Aedas. The innovative structure houses cutting-edge labs gathering together researchers in biology, chemistry, physics and engineering, as well as a science library, lecture hall and café, completing the outlines of the university’s original Morningside Heights campus plan by McKim, Mead and White. Built as a bridge above the existing Levien Gym in the Dodge Physical Fitness Center and supported by a 129-foot long, three-dimensional truss, the 14-story facility accommodates seven double-height lab floors designed to mitigate vibration and allow for flexible layouts as new scientific research priorities evolve.

Elevated, enclosed bridges to adjacent science facilities in Pupin Hall and Chandler Hall will encourage more interaction among faculty and students from the university’s science and engineering departments. Interior lobbies flow from the sidewalk level at 120th Street and Broadway to a publicly accessible, 1,400 square foot café above, and are connected visually and spatially to the campus-level lobby. A new exterior stairway connects the sidewalk at 120th Street to Pupin Plaza, permitting direct access to campus. When fully occupied, the building will provide research, teaching and study space for a community of faculty members and students working in 21 different labs. Among the first areas of research in the labs are nanotechnology, single molecule physics and chemistry, biophysics, and biochemistry and synthetic chemistry. In the lab dedicated to biochemistry and synthetic chemistry, researchers will be using state-of-the-art tools to better understand the mechanisms of cell death involved in cancer and neurodegeneration.

A unitized glass and aluminum panel curtain wall on the west, Broadway-facing façade, mirrors the building’s structural steel system. The elevation expresses cross bracing locations of the three-dimensional truss structure on the exterior skin. The west façade wraps the laboratories and is composed of diagonally louvered opaque panels and horizontally louvered vision strip panels. The east, campus-facing façade, is a clear glass volume showcasing the activities of faculty and students within. Another clear glass volume at the top of the structure acts as a beacon toward the neighborhood and Columbia’s new Manhattanville campus.

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