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Snøhetta wins bid to design Cornell Tech conference center

Snøhetta has won a place at the designing table for Cornell Tech’s new Roosevelt Island campu

Concept rendering of conference center (inset: Craig Dykers of Snøhetta)

Snøhetta has won a place at the designing table for Cornell Tech’s new Roosevelt Island campus, sources told The Real Deal.

The Norway- and New York City-based architecture firm was selected to design the Verizon Executive Education Center, sources said, one of 10 buildings ultimately planned for the 12-acre campus. Snøhetta competed for the project with the likes of Gensler and TEN Arquitectos. Representatives for the firm didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment on Thursday.

The dimensions and design of the conference building were not immediately available. Verizon secured naming rights in February after a $50 million donation.

The first phase’s three other buildings — the Bloomberg Center, The Bridge at Cornell Tech and a residential building — are respectively being designed by Thom Mayne, Weiss/Manfredi Architecture and Handel Architects, according to Cornell Tech’s website.

The new campus is being billed as a new paradigm for environmentally-conscious building. The first housing complex, which is being developed by Hudson Companies and Related Companies, will employ passive design, a method that can cut energy costs by 90 percent. Though passive housing has caught on in parts of Europe, the project is expected to be one of the first of its kind in the U.S.

Cornell Tech is slated to open in the summer of 2017, at which point it will cover 2.5 acres on Roosevelt Island. Skidmore Owings & Merrill, the architecture firm behind One World Trade Center, is designing the campus’ master plan, which divides construction into three phases. When the whole campus is finished — projected to be in 2043 — the campus will span 12 acres and have two million square feet of new buildings, according to Cornell Tech’s website.

Source: The Real Deal