Cooper Union

Cooper Union's Academic Building at 41 Cooper Square

Cooper Union's 175,000-square-foot, $111.6 million addition, known simply by its street address, 41 Cooper Square, covers the full block on Third Avenue from East 6th to East 7th in downtown Manhattan, bordering the East Village. Although it is roughly the same size as Cooper Union's foundation building diagonally across from Cooper Square, its futuristic façade is strikingly different in style and unlike anything else around it.

A vertical piazza—the central space for informal social, intellectual and creative exchange—forms the heart of the new academic building. An undulating lattice envelopes a 20-foot wide grand stair which ascends four stories from the ground level through the sky-lit central atrium, which itself reaches to the full height of the building. This vertical piazza is the social heart of the building, providing a place for impromptu and planned meetings, student gatherings, lectures, and for the intellectual debate that defines the academic environment.

Model of the building's understructure.

Detail of the gorge which splits the building.

Design Assist

Morphosis’ architects brought Zahner onto the design team early in the process to provide a valuable engineering service that introduces intelligent connections and smart-building practices to the facade design. Many of our projects start at this phase, where architects provide a general model or drawings, and we help redefine the details for efficiency and trueness to the original design.

As the project moved into the production phase; the project was engineered, drafted, and fabricated as pre-assembled metal panels for quick installation on the building's surface. The panels were shipped to New York City where local installers and Zahner partners, W&W Glass, installed the pre-fabricated panels.

Zahner worked on two projects previously with Morphosis, the Eugene Federal Courthouse, and the Morphosis exhibit in Paris.

The Screen

From afar, the New Cooper Union Academic Building appears to have tall windows scattered all over its surface. Drawing nearer, these little windows are actually sheets of stainless steel, and it is the rest of the building which is the window. Perforated stainless steel, with a mechanically-applied Angel Hair™ finish, adorns the entire façade.

The perforated metal skin surrounding the entirety of the building serves several sustainability purposes: It controls sunlight penetration during the summer to reduce the influx of heat radiation, while serving as an insulating barrier in cold weather, further reducing energy loss. This energy-saving device promises a 50% reduction in heat load.

Construction

Below is a time-lapsed video of the panel systems being installed by local installers.

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News & Updates

"Zinc shows its mettle" - The Miami Herald 4/20/2013

Zahner's Director of Marketing, Gary Davis, discusses the benefits and uses of Zinc in architecture.