The New School’s New Hub
Tags: Higher Education, Design, Urban Design, Architecture, New York

What was the site like before SOM started design work?

Jon Cicconi: The site was home to a two-story, windowless retail mall from the ’50s on a part of Fifth Avenue where most of the buildings are around 15 stories high. The New School eventually acquired it, made some modifications to bring in natural light, and turned it into a student center. It was dark and not at all worthy of the institution, but it also functioned as the library and became the one space students really felt was theirs. So even though administrators knew the building was far from ideal, the process of decamping from that building took quite a while. A temporary library was built while our project was being constructed, but the school lost quite a bit of student space in the interim, so there were protests and sit-ins. It was a complicated process.

A map featuring The New School’s Manhattan footprint in relation to the University Center. Image © SOM.

And what was the school’s overall footprint before the University Center project?

The university has various buildings spread out through the Village, but there was no single building that really served as the center of the campus. There was one unconventionally designed structure, which was purpose-built for them in 1930, designed by Joseph Urban [Austrian-born architect, illustrator, and theater set designer who also designed the Hearst Tower]. It’s mid-block and not easy to find.

The university had been gearing up for years to put something on the Fifth Avenue site that would unite the entire university and wanted to make sure there were enough resources in it that it would draw from every one of its eight schools. The school has always had a countercultural mentality. It started as The New School for Social Research and welcomed scholars who were expelled from Nazi Germany and elsewhere in Europe for their progressive beliefs before finding a home in Greenwich Village. It grew over the years, acquiring a mix of likeminded schools for music, performing arts, liberal arts, design, and public engagement. They wanted this building to have something for everyone — a place where people could rub shoulders and learn from each other.

What did SOM originally come up with?

An early conceptual rendering for the University Center. Image © SOM.

SOM had been involved with the project since 2005. Our initial concept provided the campus center that The New School was looking for, and that program didn’t originally call for residences. The renderings of this first concept were online for several years, and ended up being the face of the project for a long time. Eventually the team decided to shrink down the academic part by half and add student residences. This not only fulfilled a need for housing, but also helped to make the project financially viable.

And it is important to note that we were able to deliver the project on budget and on schedule. Design on the building as it was built started in 2009, construction started in 2011, and it opened in January 2014.

What was behind the decision to make the stairwell the focal point of the design?