Beginning in 2002, Columbia identified a need to invest in its natural sciences programs, and a subsequent program report further identified the need to promote collaboration opportunities within a new building, to provide links to other campus buildings, and to create campus-wide amenities that would promote student interaction. Recently completed, the Northwest Corner Building has addressed these goals.

As an insertion into the already dense urban fabric of the Morningside campus, the Northwest Corner Building was required to be built as a free-standing structure spanning 126 feet over and above the existing Dodge Gymnasium. The gym was only allowed to be closed for three months so as to not impact the University’s varsity athletics schedule. As such the building was designed as a bridge using three primary trusses to span over the gym. These trusses were constructed over the sidewalk, then pushed horizontally into place over the course of two days.

The facility not only creates the first interdisciplinary science space on the Morningside campus, but also extends its reach via physical bridges to the adjoining buildings housing chemistry and physics, thus completing a connected ring of all the physical science and engineering buildings.

The 188,000-gsf, 14-story building provides 70,000 sf of new lab space for 21 new labs on seven floors. The remaining levels provide space for a new science library, which will free up an additional 30,000 sf in four other buildings by consolidating the libraries of electrical engineering, physics, chemistry, and biology. With the space made available, the new building adds approximately 35 percent more research space to these disciplines.

Associate Architect with Rafael Moneo, Design Architect and Moneo Brock Studio, Design Project Architect.