Cornell releases preliminary renderings of NYC Tech Campus

To celebrate the start of a seven-month land use review process, Cornell has released preliminary renderings of the first academic building planned for Cornell Tech – the new world-class technology and entrepreneurship campus in New York City that was masterplanned by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM).
The modern campus strives to rethink academic workspace, prioritize environmental performance, and exploit the unique urban condition of Roosevelt Island. In May, Pritzker Prize laureate Thom Mayne, founder of Morphosis, was appointed as architect of the first landmark building, which will set the stage for the carbon positive campus.
Continue after the break to learn more.
The FLOAT House – Make it Right / Morphosis Architects

Architects: Morphosis Architects
Location: 1638 Tennessee St, New Orleans, LA 70117, USA
Project Year: 2009
Project Area: 88.0 sqm
Photographs: Iwan Baan
CornellNYC selects Architect for Net-Zero Tech Campus

Today, Cornell University has announced their selection of Thom Mayne and Morphosis to design the first academic building for the CornellNYC Tech campus on Roosevelt Island. Mayor Michael Bloomberg awarded the Roosevelt Island campus project to Cornell mid-December of last year. With plans to achieve net-zero, the campus is striving to become the new modern prototype for learning spaces worldwide.
“This project represents an extraordinary opportunity to explore the intersection of three territories: environmental performance, rethinking the academic workspace and the unique urban condition of Roosevelt Island,” Mayne said, as reported by Cornell University. “This nexus offers tremendous opportunities not only for CornellNYC Tech, but also for New York City.”
Continue reading for more.
Cornell Reveals the Architects Competing to Design the First NYC Tech Campus Building

After Mayor Bloomberg, Cornell President Skorton and Technion President Lavie announced Cornell’s victory over Stanford to build an eleven acre state-of-the-art tech campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City, the team has now tackled their next step in choosing six high-profile architecture firms competing to design the schools first academic facility.
Selected from over more than 40 firms from the U.S. and abroad, the finalists include Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), Morphosis Architects, Steven Holl Architects and Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Continue reading for more information.
Architecture City Guide: Shanghai
This week, with the help of our readers, our Architecture City Guide is headed to Shanghai. Shanghai is noted for having more Art Deco buildings than any other city, including László Hudec’s Park Hotel, which is not on our list but will be added in a future guide. Like many cities in China, Shanghai’s rapid growth has meant a boon in contemporary architecture styles. We put together a list of 12 modern/contemporary buildings that we feel provides a good starting point. It is far from complete. There are dozens of other great buildings that are not our list, and we are looking to add to the list in the near future. Please add your favorites in the comment section below so we can add them on the second go around. Again thank you to all our readers who sent in their suggestions and photographs. The city guides would not be possible without your help.
To check out other cities visit our world map or our Architecture City Guide page.
The Architecture City Guide: Shanghai list and corresponding map after the break.
Mayne to join SCI-Arc

SCI-Arc, Los Angeles’ cutting edge architectural institute, has just announced Thom Mayne as the newest Trustee of the board. Mayne’s addition to the board emphasizes SCI-Arc’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of traditional architectural form and theory. Back in 1972, Mayne co-founded the institute along with seven faculty members and approximately forty students who left Cal Poly Pomona to form a “a college without walls.” For the past nearly four decades, Mayne has been an integral part of the university, serving as a juror, lecturer and generous supporter of the school. ”Thom Mayne is the quintessential SCI-Arc architect. His addition to the board is indicative of the fact that SCI-Arc continues to re-imagine the content of architecture,” said Director Eric Owen Moss. According to SCI-Arc, this appointment complements a series of events that have prompted the school’s growth both physically and programmatically.
Giant Interactive Group Corporate Headquarters / Morphosis Architects

Architects: Morphosis Architects
Location: Shanghai, China
Client: Giant Interactive Group
Project area: 253,300 sqm
Project year: 2006 – 2010
Photographs: Iwan Baan
In Progress: Giant Group Campus / Morphosis

Thom Mayne’s architecture has pushed building techniques in order to take his organics form to reality, and I think that the best way to understand his projects is not through renders or even drawings, but by watching the structure and the construction progress.

After the break drawings and several photos during the construction phase of this almost completed project in China:
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art / Morphosis Architects

Location: New York, USA
Architecture: Morphosis Architects
Thom Mayne, Principal / Design Director
Silvia Kuhle, Project Manager
Pavel Getov, Project Architect
Jean Oei, Job Captain/ Project Designer
Chandler Ahrens / Lead Designer
Project Designers: Natalia Traverso Caruana, Go-Woon Seo
Project Team: Irena Bedenikovic, Salvador Hidalgo, Debbie Lin, Kristina Loock,
IT Co-ordinator: Marty Doscher
Project Assistants: Ben Damron, Graham Ferrier
Model Team: Reinhard Schmoelzer with Patrick Dunn-Baker, Charles Austin, Sean Anderson, Domenique Cheng, Soohyun Cheng, Eui Yeob Jeong, Amy Kwok, Shannon Loew, Brock Hinze, Hugo Martinez, Greg Neudorf
Associated Architect: Gruzen Samton
Owner’s Representative: Jonathan Rose Companies
General Contractor: FJ Sciame
Client: The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
Program: Academic and laboratory building with exhibition gallery, auditorium, lounge and multi-purpose space, and retail space
Constructed Area: 16,258 sqm
Design Year: 2004-2006
Construction Year: 2006-2009
Photographs: Iwan Baan
Museum of Nature and Science / Morphosis
A few days ago, Thom Mayne unveiled his $185 million museum design for the Perot Museum of Nature and Science at Victory Park in Dallas, which is set for groundbreaking later this fall. ”As instruments of education and social change, museums have the potential to shape our understanding of ourselves and the world in which we live…As our global environment faces ever more critical challenges, a broader understanding of the interdependence of natural systems is becoming more essential to our survival and evolution. Museums dedicated to nature and science play a key role in expanding our understanding of these complex systems,” explained Mayne.
More about the museum after the break.
Four Towers in One Competition / Morphosis

Morphosis just shared with us their proposal for the Four Towers in One Competition. The competition (which Steven Holl Architects ultimately won) asked participants to design an office tower complex for the new Shenzhen Stock Exchange Headquarters in the Futian commercial business district. The area was in need of a unified urban plan that would include the Headquarters for the new office towers of Shenzhen Media Group, China Construction Bank, China Insurance Group, and Southern & Bosera Funds. For Morphosis’ proposal, rather than creating various disconnected vertical skyscrapers, the project aims to create one “cohesive, interwoven district.” By conceiving the sites as 3-dimensional envelopes rather than flat 2-dimensional footprints, the buildings can be interwoven to “facilitate a network of interlocking forms reminiscent of the venerated Chinese puzzle.”
More images and further project description after the break.
Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics / Morphosis Architects

Architecture: Morphosis Architects
Location: Pasadena, California, USA
Project Manager: Kim Groves
Job Captain: Salvador Hidalgo
Project Architect: David Rindlaub
Project Designers: Martin Summers, Shanna Yates
Project Team: Irena Bedenikovic, Pavel Getov, Debbie Lin, Kristina Loock, David Rindlaub
Project Assistants: Patrick Dunn-Baker with Adam Bressler, Laura Foxman, Brock Hinze, Amy Kwok, Hugo Martinez, Mark McPhie, Barbra Moss, Greg Neudorf, Mike Patterson, Aleksander Tamm-Seitz , Rychiee Espinosa, Jennifer Kasick, Kyle Coburn, Christin To, Sunnie Lau
Constructed Area: 9,290 sqm
Project Year: 2009
Texts: Morphosis
Photographs: Michael Powers
Phare Tower / Morphosis Achitects

Architecture: Morphosis Architects
Location: Puteaux, France
Project Principal (through Design Development): Tim Christ
Project Director: Charles Lamy
Project Manager: Matt Grady
Project Architect: David Rindlaub
Project Designer: Chandler Ahrens
Client: Unibail
Program: Commercial office tower with office space, employee restaurants, public café, trading floors, public amenities, and parking for 450 cars
Type: Commercial
Constructed Area: 185,494 sqm
Design Year: 2006-2009
Construction Year: 2010-2014
Images: © Morphosis Architects
Texts: Thom Mayne and Morphosis
More info: http://www.morphopedia.com/
Taipei Performing Arts Center proposal by Morphosis
The Taipei Performing Arts Center design was finally won by OMA. However, we already feature other two proposals. One by NL Architects, other by Ábalos + Sentkiewicz. Now, we bring you the futuristic design by Morphosis Architects.
More information about the proposal here. Images after the break.














