flexiblefullpage -
billboard - default
interstitial1 - interstitial
catfish1 - bottom
Currently Reading

As project delivery models evolve, designers rethink their role

Sustainability

As project delivery models evolve, designers rethink their role

New York City’s newest university campus, Cornell Tech, pushes the limits of sustainable and resilient design.


By Meredith Bostwick-Lorenzo Eiroa, Project Manager, SOM | October 25, 2018
Aerial view of Cornell Tech Campus

Courtesy SOM, Lucas Blair Simpson

Since opening in September 2017, Cornell Tech’s New York campus has gained attention for its inventive, ambitious design. The bold architectural forms, dramatically sculpted topography of its Roosevelt Island site, and leading-edge sustainability credentials of the completed first phase signal an intention to rethink education for the 21st century.

But some of the project’s most important innovations lay in the more prosaic realm of process, collaborative development, and partnership structures. Reflecting a growing trend in American higher education, Cornell Tech used several alternative models of project implementation to make its holistic vision for the first phase of the campus a reality.

This trend is also reshaping the designer’s role. As Cornell Tech’s campus master planner, we took on the responsibility to guide the implementation process in close collaboration with multiple partners. This was a necessity given the complex stakeholder network: the city of New York and its agencies, Cornell University and its constituents, the Roosevelt Island community, and third-party partners.

During the project, our team at SOM played the role of an orchestra conductor, guiding the ensemble toward the creation of a harmonious whole.

 

Cornell Tech NY campusCourtesy SOM, Lucas Blair Simpson.

 

The evolution of project delivery

Universities in the United States have traditionally relied on a project delivery approach known as design-bid-build. Clients first hire an architecture firm to create a design; then, when the design is complete, they hire a contractor to build it. But as schools look for ways to prioritize capital planning budgets, create more impact through partnerships, and synergize regional and global interest with institutional core strengths, they’re exploring different options.

Today, many of our university clients use an approach known as construction manager at risk. This injects construction expertise into projects from the earliest stages. Partners work collaboratively to optimize a project’s constructability, to find intelligent ways to accelerate the overall construction timeline, and to identify strategies to assist the project’s budget.

Public-private partnerships are also becoming more popular in higher education. Once used primarily for revenue-generating student housing, this financing structure is increasingly being applied to other project types.

 

Cornell Tech CampusCourtesy SOM.

 

The unprecedented campus

Cornell Tech is unique in many ways, and its innovative approach to achieve a holistic campus is no exception. The school itself is a kind of public-private partnership between Cornell, Technion Israel Institute of Technology, and  the City of New York. The city granted Cornell a 99-year lease for the land, but no single entity owns all campus buildings. (For example, a developer owns the corporate co-location facility known as the Tata Innovation Center, leasing space to industry partners and the university.) Within a tight timeline driven by Cornell’s partnership with the City of New York, SOM led the planning process for the first phase of a cohesive campus that integrates several buildings designed and built by separate teams.

The nuances of each building’s development within the whole ultimately made the campus financially feasible. This approach also supported the city’s and the university’s goal of broad-ranging collaboration and experimentation. With an ever-expansive team, SOM helped Cornell to synthesize all campus elements within one cohesive plan.

 

Cornell Tech campus green spaceCourtesy SOM, Lucas Blair Simpson.

 

This was no small consideration for a project whose ultimate aim is to futureproof New York City’s economy. Cornell Tech grew out of the city’s desire to create a new applied sciences hub that would attract leading scientists, engineers, and businesspeople from around the globe for decades to come. It was therefore critical to make the campus itself a beacon that reinforces the strengths of Cornell’s academic curriculum, while fusing this intelligence with real-world partnership. We worked closely with Cornell to shape a framework plan that would make the campus lively, accessible, and resilient.

 

Keeping score

To ensure that the teams working on each building understood the framework plan’s goals and tailored their plans accordingly, we worked with Cornell to develop a tool that we called the Scorecard. This list of nine criteria clearly spelled out the core targets for campus-wide sustainable site development parameters as they pertained to individual buildings. It took into account factors ranging from the practical (for instance, where to create tax lots, situate buildings, and coordinate utility points of entry) to the experiential (how a cohesive campus landscape meets the building edges). Ultimately, this simple list of clear parameters helped Cornell balance the diverse needs of individual building projects, while building consensus around a holistic campus plan.

 

Courtesy SOM.

 

As each building team was brought on board, SOM held a kickoff geared to introduce each team to the Scorecard. We asked the architects, developers, and subconsultants involved to prioritize the specific building needs and design advancement, while utilizing the Scorecard items to talk through potential challenges (such as constructability, interfaces, timing, utilities distribution, signage and wayfinding, and open space interventions). We then worked collectively to find the best solutions.

Once each project team completed a major milestone, we repeated this process, which we referred to as a “reconciliation” period. Reviewing the Scorecard with key players, we determined the fixed parameters that the campus plan should govern, and which aspects could be revisited collaboratively.

With so many separate building teams involved, the Scorecard helped to keep everyone accountable to the overall campus plan. It kept teams on track as individual projects progressed—for instance, it helped us to reconcile the initial, theoretical energy loads we established for the campus with the actual loads for each building.

This process also resulted in a number of important breakthroughs. We helped contribute to the net-zero-energy target of the Bloomberg Center, the main academic building, by coordinating strategic elements of the site development: housing 80 geothermal wells and situating a 40,000-gallon underground tank to capture rainwater for use in the building’s plumbing, cooling, and irrigation systems.

 

Aerial view of Cornell Tech CampusCourtesy SOM, Iwan Baan.

 

Another success story: the resilient campus infrastructure. To protect Cornell Tech from rising sea levels and future storms, the master plan established the island’s natural central ridge as the main pedestrian circulation route. As a result, all primary building entrances are located along this elevated pathway. The ridge is also used as the main artery to distribute the electrical supply across the campus. As a result, this often vulnerable infrastructure is kept several feet above the base floodplain elevations, and on higher ground than most of Lower Manhattan, in fact.

 

Looking to the future

Although our Scorecard method worked well for Cornell Tech, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for helping clients in higher education—or any other field—navigate alternative project delivery or implementation models. In a fast-changing market, designers need to return to first principles for every project, working to understand the specific challenges and opportunities involved and to craft solutions accordingly.

These skills will become even more important as climate change reshapes cities and college campuses alike. To address broad-ranging infrastructure vulnerabilities, universities are increasingly partnering with local governments and other entities. Designers have a unique role to play in this process: helping all parties understand the potential of a given site or system, and working together to realize it.

 

Courtesy SOM, Lucas Blair Simpson.

Related Stories

| Feb 9, 2011

Businesses make bigger, bolder sustainability commitments

In 2010, U.S. corporations continued to enhance their sustainable business efforts by making bigger, bolder, longer-term sustainability commitments. GreenBiz issued its 4th annual State of Green Business report, a free downloadable report that measures the progress of U.S. business and the economy from an environmental perspective, and highlights key trends in corporate culture in regard to the environment.

| Feb 7, 2011

President Obama cites PPG glass, coatings in Penn State speech

President Barack Obama yesterday acknowledged PPG Industries as a leader in the development of high-performance glass and coatings for energy-efficient buildings during a visit to Penn State University that kicked off the U.S. government’s “Better Buildings Initiative.’

| Feb 7, 2011

GSA Unveils New Sustainable Workplace Design Tool

The U.S. General Services Administration launched its Sustainable Facilities Tool on Monday, Feb. 7.  The innovative online tool will make it easier for both government and private-sector property managers and developers to learn about and evaluate strategies to make workplaces more sustainable, helping to build and create jobs in America’s clean energy economy of the future.

| Feb 4, 2011

U.S. Green Building Council applauds President Obama’s Green Building Initiative

The U.S. Green Building Council applauded a key element of President Obama’s plan to “win the future” by making America’s commercial buildings more energy- and resource-efficient over the next decade.  The President’s plan, entitled Better Buildings Initiative, catalyzes private-sector investment through a series of incentives to upgrade offices, stores, schools and universities, hospitals and other commercial and municipal buildings.

| Feb 4, 2011

President Obama: 20% improvement in energy efficiency will save $40 billion

President Obama’s Better Buildings Initiative, announced February 3, 2011, aims to achieve a 20% improvement in energy efficiency in commercial buildings by 2020, improvements that will save American businesses $40 billion a year.

| Jan 25, 2011

Bloomberg launches NYC Urban Tech Innovation Center

To promote the development and commercialization of green building technologies in New York City, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has launched the NYC Urban Technology Innovation Center. This initiative will connect academic institutions conducting underlying research, companies creating the associated products, and building owners who will use those technologies.

| Jan 25, 2011

InterContinental Hotels Group gets LEED pre-certification

InterContinental Hotels Group, the world's largest hotel group by number of rooms, announced that its in-house sustainability system Green Engage has been awarded LEED volume pre-certification established from the USGBC and verified by the Green Building Certification Institute. IHG is the first hotel company to receive this award for an existing hotels program.

| Jan 21, 2011

Combination credit union and USO center earns LEED Silver

After the Army announced plans to expand Fort Bliss, in Texas, by up to 30,000 troops, FirstLight Federal Credit Union contracted NewGround (as CM) to build a new 16,000-sf facility, allocating 6,000 sf for a USO center with an Internet café, gaming stations, and theater.

| Jan 21, 2011

Manufacturing plant transformed into LEED Platinum Clif Bar headquarters

Clif Bar & Co.’s new 115,000-sf headquarters in Emeryville, Calif., is one of the first buildings in the state to meet the 2008 California Building Energy Efficiency Standards. The structure has the largest smart solar array in North America, which will provide nearly all of its electrical energy needs.

| Jan 21, 2011

Primate research facility at Duke improves life for lemurs

Dozens of lemurs have new homes in two new facilities at the Duke Lemur Center in Raleigh, N.C. The Releasable Building connects to a 69-acre fenced forest for free-ranging lemurs, while the Semi-Releasable Building is for lemurs with limited-range privileges.

boombox1 - default
boombox2 -
native1 -

More In Category

Contractors

AGC releases decarbonization playbook to help assess, track, reduce GHG emissions

The Associated General Contractors of America released a new, first-of-its-kind, decarbonization playbook designed to help firms assess, track, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions on projects. The AGC Playbook on Decarbonization and Carbon Reporting in the Construction Industry is part of the association’s efforts to make sure construction firms play a leading role in crafting carbon-reduction measures for the industry.


Mass Timber

Bjarke Ingels Group designs a mass timber cube structure for the University of Kansas

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and executive architect BNIM have unveiled their design for a new mass timber cube structure called the Makers’ KUbe for the University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design. A six-story, 50,000-sf building for learning and collaboration, the light-filled KUbe will house studio and teaching space, 3D-printing and robotic labs, and a ground-level cafe, all organized around a central core.



halfpage1 -

Most Popular Content

  1. 2021 Giants 400 Report
  2. Top 150 Architecture Firms for 2019
  3. 13 projects that represent the future of affordable housing
  4. Sagrada Familia completion date pushed back due to coronavirus
  5. Top 160 Architecture Firms 2021