Project Details
- Project Name
- The Rockefeller University Stavros Niarchos Foundation - David Rockefeller River Campus
- Client/Owner
- The Rockefeller University
- Project Scope
- Renovation/Remodel
- Size
- 20,440 sq. feet
- Awards
- 2023 AIA - National Awards
- Shared by
- Zonda Media
- Team
- Rafael Viñoly, Project Designer
- Consultants
-
Other: AKRF, Inc.,Other: Anderson Kill & Olick PC,Service Engineer: Bard, Rao + Athanas Consulting Engineers,Audio-visual and Information Technology: Convergent Technologies Design Group,Other: Entuitive,Other: Jensen Hughes,Civil Engineer: Langan,Geotechnical Engineer: Langan,Landscape Architect: Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects,Other: Ocean and Coastal Consultants,Other: One Lux Studio,Other: Romano Gatland,Other: SBI Consultants,Structural Engineer: Thornton Tomasetti,Construction Manager: Turner Construction Company
- Project Status
- Built
- Room or Space
-
Entryway ,Kitchen ,Outdoor ,Specialty Room
- Style
- Modern
This project was selected as a winner in AIA's 2023 Architecture Awards.
The great freight ships that once plied New York’s East River are long gone—but thanks to locally headquartered Rafael Viñoly Architects, one especially impressive craft has lately docked on the waterfront just north of the 59th Street Bridge.
The David Rockfeller River Campus for the Rockfeller University Stavros Niarchos Foundation is a bit of infrastructural wizardry, using the research institute’s singular location to create a high-functioning, all-modern biotech facility that also happens to be a spectacular piece of engineering. Leaning out over the FDR Drive, the ship-like building is supported above the highway by slender, forking piers, with thousands of cars a day passing unheard and unseen beneath its remarkably delicate-looking steel frame and glass façade. Replete with meeting rooms, labs, and social spaces, the building is a hive of activity day and night, while its grassy rooftop (as well as the restored public greenway below) make it appear less like a building than a feature of the landscape. For Viñoly, who died in March, the design is a moving testament to his career-long commitment to the city.
PROJECT CREDITS
Project: The Rockefeller University Stavros Niarchos Foundation - David Rockefeller River Campus
Architect: Rafael Viñoly Architects
Structural Engineer: Thornton Tomasetti
MEP Engineer: Bard, Rao + Athanas Consulting Engineers
Landscape Architect: Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects
Audio Visual and Technology Consultant: Convergent Technologies Design Group
Building Code and Life Safety Consultant: Jensen Hughes
Civil Engineer: Langan
Commissioning Agent: The Fulcrum Group
Cost Estimator: SBI Consultants
Enclosure and Curtain Wall Consultant: Entuitive
Environmental Consultant: AKRF
Food Service Consultant : Romano Gatland
Geotechnical Engineer: Langan
Land Use Attorney: Anderson Kill & Olick PC
Lighting Designer: One Lux Studio
Marine Engineer: Ocean and Coastal Consultants
Specifications Writer: Robert Schwartz & Associates
Sustainability Consultant: EME Group
Wind Tunnel Consultant: Novus Engineering, PC
Construction Manager: Turner Construction Company
Steel Fabrication and Erection: New York Builders
Laboratory Casework: Bicasa
Size: 20,440 square feet
This article first appeared in the May/June 2023 issue of ARCHITECT.
Project Description
FROM THE ARCHITECTS:
The decision to maintain a low building profile and take advantage of the existing air rights over FDR drive is consistent with the University’s overriding view of the image it wants to project to the community, both local and international. The decision to preserve its low-density development, and to grow slowly in the future and not aggressively, yet to upgrade its research facilities while preserving the Dan Kiley-designed majestic landscape at its core, has directly informed the siting and massing of the new 160,000-sf laboratory building.
By placing the new laboratories and support space in a low-rise structure over the FDR Drive adjacent to the campus, the design extends the existing sloping topography of the campus further east, culminating in a green roof over the new laboratories that is integrated into the landscape, overlooking the East River. This design creates large floor plates extending in a north-south direction which not only serve current needs but also allow for the possibility of reconfiguration over time as needs change.
