In this issue:
· Common Ground Opens The Brook in The Bronx
· Weill Cornell Medical College Expands Interdisciplinary Research
· Public to Walk in Donald Judd’s Footsteps
· SUNY Maritime Harnesses Wind

Common Ground Opens The Brook in The Bronx

The Brook.

Courtesy Alexander Gorlin Architects

Common Ground, New York’s largest provider of supportive housing, recently completed its first project in the Bronx with The Brook, a six-story residential project designed by Alexander Gorlin Architects. The 90,000-square-foot project contains 120 units for formerly homeless adults, including those with special needs, and 70 units for low-income single adults from the South Bronx. The project features a ground floor retail space; a 2,400-square-foot event space open to the neighborhood; a large courtyard garden; computer lab; and fitness room. Sustainable features include a green roof; a high-efficiency building temperature management system; high-efficiency boilers; light and motion sensors; and low VOC paints and materials. Common Ground’s service partner BronxWorks will provide on-site social services. The $43 million project was developed under NYC’s New Housing Marketplace Plan, which intends to build or preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing by 2014, with more than 100,000 units financed to date.

Weill Cornell Medical College Expands Interdisciplinary Research

New medical research building at Weill Cornell Medical College.

©Polshek Partnership Architects

Construction has begun on a new medical research building at Weill Cornell Medical College on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The new, $650 million facility, designed by Polshek Partnership Architects, will more than double the institution’s existing research space. The 18-story, 480,000-square-foot building will include 16 floors of housing research initiatives that target cancer, cardiovascular disease, children’s health, and neurodegenerative diseases, and global health and infectious diseases. Open floor plans throughout will facilitate communication and collaboration among scientists. Its proximity to the Weill Greenberg Center, the Medical College’s ambulatory care building, will further enhance communication between investigative researchers and practicing clinicians.

Public to Walk in Donald Judd’s Footsteps

101 Spring Street.

Architecture Research Office

The artist Donald Judd lived and worked in a five-story cast iron loft in SoHo, and left it as a haunting “permanent installation.” It has not been open to the public. Architecture Research Office (ARO) will restore the building as a museum and office for the Judd Foundation. Constructed in 1870 by Nicholas Whyte, the building was built as a factory. The scope of the restoration includes a complete overhaul of the building’s structural foundation; preservation of the historic exterior fabric; and the installation of building-wide environmental and fire safety systems. Upon completion, scheduled for spring 2013, the ground floor will host public programs, while visitors to the upper floors will experience Judd’s collection of more than 500 objects, original sculptures, paintings, drawings, prints, and furniture, as well as works by Marcel Duchamp, Dan Flavin, Claes Oldenburg, Ad Reinhardt, and Frank Stella, among many others.

SUNY Maritime Harnesses Wind

SUNY Maritime.

EYP Architecture & Engineering

EYP Architecture & Engineering has been selected to design the new academic building on the Fort Schuyler campus of SUNY Maritime College. Located at the confluence of the East River and Long Island Sound in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx, the building will include classrooms capable of supporting a variety of seating configurations to match different pedagogical styles; a reconfigurable multi-purpose room; formal and informal student areas; conference rooms; an outdoor terrace; and an accessible roof. Clad in glass and metal that responds to its marine environment, the building will be naturally ventilated, deflecting harsh winder winds and channeling cooler summer winds. Southern exposure will allow for passive heating during the winter, and a system of exterior sunshades will minimize solar heat gain in the summer. Rusticated stone panels will visually connect with the stonework of a nearby historic fort.