It’s impossible to overstate the significance of the forthcoming Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island, a major project for New York City by any measure. Where “The Bridge” by WEISS/MANFREDI will host a hybrid of academic and corporate programming within buildings boasting highly visible sustainable features, the students’ living quarters will possess equally impressive sustainable credentials. Handel Architects’ Cornell Tech Residential Tower broke ground just last week — but that’s not the only reason why it’s been making headlines.
In a city bristling with over 200 skyscrapers, it isn’t easy for a new high-rise building to stand out from the crowd, but the new residential tower will have a notable claim to fame: It will be the world’s tallest structure built to Passivhaus standards on its completion in two years’ time. The building’s summit will reach 270 feet; residents in the top floors will scarcely have to crane their necks to admire the Queensboro Bridge’s ornate tower pinnacles to the north.
This would be remarkable enough for a private residential tower in any borough, but, as university housing, the challenge for Handel was greater still. “The overall construction cost had to be within a budget that would make rents affordable for students,” explains Blake Middleton, partner-in-charge at the New York-based firm. “Our search for an affordable exterior wall that could be air-tight directed us to selecting a relatively lightweight, prefabricated wall system.”
As any architect who has designed to these standards knows all too well, air tightness is one of the key factors in achieving the desired statistics pertaining to energy efficiency. The rigorous energy requirements of Passivhaus — developed by Bo Adamson and Wolfgang Feist in Germany in the 1990s — demand an extremely tight, highly insulated enclosure, leading Handel to design a special building envelope they call “The Wrap.”
“About 15 inches thick, The Wrap is expressive of the idea of the building,” elaborates Middleton. “It’s a super-efficient wall surface, punctuated by deep set windows set in bands incised in the thick wall.” Due to the budget, this concept had to be formulated using a selection of “off the shelf” technologies, including prefabricated panels, triple-glazed windows, heat-recovery ventilation systems, and variable-refrigerant flow heating and cooling evaporators.
The crucial aspect for Middleton, though, is not so much about specifying these products, but how they will be manufactured and then put together on site. “The tricky part in achieving Passivhaus standards is in executing the details in both the fabrication and installation phases. We are very focused on how this will all go together in the field.”
“The Wrap” will form a new column of contemporary chic upon the skyline, its metallic sheen standing in stark contrast to the red brick wings of Goldwater Memorial Hospital, demolished to make way for the new campus. Although it stands substantially taller than the adjacent campus buildings by WEISS/MANFREDI, the building has been designed to respond to its low-rise neighbors, along with further towers in the works by Morphosis and another as yet unnamed architect.
“Four other projects were already deep into design by the time our team began work,” reflects Middleton. “So to some degree, we had to react to the architecture that has already been approved by the City. However, getting the conceptual ‘back-story’ from the designers at Morphosis and WEISS/MANFREDI for each building was very helpful to give context to our design proposal.”
The architects also collaborated extensively with master planners SOM and James Corner Field Operations throughout the evolution of the project, looking to create a tower that would be a neat fit with the overarching vision for this major mixed-use development. Middleton was happy with the communicative process with Handel’s prestigious peers: “There was a very constructive give and take that I think will help integrate the Residential Tower comfortably into the relatively low-rise campus plan.”
“Each building is inherently unique (in program, in construction budget), yet there are shared sensibilities in the use of color, materiality, and even form, that I think will add up to a coherent architectural statement about Cornell Tech.”
On its completion in 2017, this project will set a new benchmark for passive architecture — and Handel anticipates a favorable influence on the entire housing sector. Indeed, Middleton is conscious that the eyes of many in the industry are trained on the firm’s work, eager to see the results of this venture into low-impact design: “I think the residential development community is looking over their shoulder to see how this plays out.”