By Matt Chaban 10/15/12 12:01am

Silicon Alley U

5 Photos

Cornell's Island of Tech

For Its Roosevelt Island Tech Campus, Cornell Pursues Some Cutting-Edge Designs by Thom Mayne and SOM

When technology changes at the speed of a microprocessor or the flicker of a screen, in the time it takes to type in a password or hit send on an email, how can buildings be created to contain all this light-speed innovation? That is the quandry confronting the architects designing Cornell and Technion University’s news campus on Roosevelt Island.

“Google didn’t exist 25 years ago, Facebook didn’t exist 25 years ago, even AOL didn’t exist 25 years ago,” Andrew Winters said on a recent afternoon. The director of capital projects and planning for Cornell NYC Tech, he was giving a preview of the the school’s proposed Roosevelt Island campus in a large conference room inside the Wall Street offices of SOM, the master planners for the 12.5-acre project. Thom Mayne, the Pritzker Prize-winning L.A. architect designing the first academic building on the campus was also present, along with a number of other Cornell construction executives.

“The challenge,” Mr. Winters continued, “is how do you create a tech campus today that is still flexible enough to grow and evolve for the next 25 years?” Read More

By Matt Chaban 2/28/12 10:52am

Silicon Alley U

18 Photos

Bohilin Cywinski Jackson

Roosevelt Renderers! Top Architects Tapped to Design Cornell Tech Campus

The innovation offered by a new tech campus on Roosevelt Island is not limited to New York’s technology sector but the design one, as well. Almost every bid had soaring renderings and flashy flythroughs, most notably the winning entry from Cornell. Now the upstate university has announced six of the world’s top firms, including a few local favorites, are in the running to design the new tech campus. Read More

By Kat Stoeffel 1/30/12 1:06pm

Higher Ed

January30

Helen Gurley Brown Donates $30 M. to Columbia and Stanford for Bicoastal Media-Tech Institute

With the help of a $30 M. gift from longtime Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and Stanford University’s School of Engineering have established the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation, the two universities and the Hearst Corporation announced today.

The Institute is inspired by David Brown, Ms. Brown’s late husband, a former journalist, publisher, film and theater producer who graduated from both Stanford and Columbia Journalism School. Read More

By The Editors 12/20/11 7:17pm

opinion

City Hall Picks a Winner

Cornell University and its partner, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, have won a highly competitive, global competition to develop a 21st-century engineering school on Roosevelt Island. But that’s not the only good news to emerge from Mayor Bloomberg’s visionary plan to transform the city into a hub of 21st-, and 22nd-, century technology.

Along with details of Cornell-Technion’s winning bid, the mayor announced that, in essence, he’s not done yet. Read More

By Laura Kusisto 4/18/11 3:56pm

lease beat

Top-Tier Safety School Takes 10K-Plus Feet

Spring has sprung and the Helmsley Building has sprouted a creeping Ivy and a couple of new laurels.

Cornell University has taken a 10,550-square-foot chunk of 230 Park Avenue. The Ithaca-based university, which was already subleasing an 8,800-square-foot space in the building, will use its big-city spread to manage its endowment fund. The asking rent Read More