Morphosis Selected to Design First Building at CornellNYC Tech

The Cooper Union, designed by Morphosis, in the East Village of New York CityLos Angeles Architect Thom Mayne’s firm Morphosis has been selected as the architect for the first of academic building to be built at Cornell University’s high-tech graduate school campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City. Talking to the New York Times about his latest contract, Mayne said that “The goal here is to develop a one-of-a-kind institution,” adding, “It’s got to start from rethinking — innovating — an environment.” Mayne has made famous work of academic contracts before—most notably the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in the East Village. As for what the new building will look like, Mayne tells the NYT that he hasn’t even seen the site plans yet, but he says, “[I like being able to tell you that I don’t have any bloody idea what it’s going to look like.” Skidmore, Owings & Merrill will continue its work with the 20-year build out of the Master Plan for the new campus. Groundbreaking for the Mayne building is expected by 2014, and project completion is expected by 2017.

An Architect’s Newspaper post has more details about the exciting design and engineering team assembled for the first building: “Morphosis will work with Arup as the engineer on the first building, which the team will design to meet a net-zero energy goal; James Corner is on board for landscape.”

The rendering for the CornellNYC Tech Master Plan courtesy of SOM

Arup Ireland Wins Huge Hospital Contract in Austria

Arup’s Ireland office has been awarded a huge contract for a €500 million hospital complex in Vienna, Austria. Added to current projects in Korea and Helsinki, the office will be busy for the foreseeable future. The 800-bed facility will be built next to the Danube and will have capacity for “40,000 hospital admissions, 250,000 outpatient frequencies and about 16,000 surgical procedures per year,” according to an article from Architecture Lab.

Digital Water Pavilion in Zaragoza, Spain features Computer-Controlled Water Walls

MIT architects and engineers have designed an interactive structure made of digitally controlled water curtains. The Digital Water Pavilion is located at the site of the Expo Zaragoza 2008 in Zaragoza, Spain. The interactive water structure contains an exhibition area, a cafe and various public spaces.

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