The new Gabrielle H. Reem and Herbert J. Kayden Center for Science and Computation at Bard College designed by Rafael Vinoly opened in September. The 49,000 square foot building provides space for the biology, computer science and mathematics departments in a facility equipped with state-of-the-art teaching and research laboratories, high tech classrooms and a sixty-person auditorium. Built in prominent central campus location, the building is organized around a curved spine. The Center’s design incorporates glass exterior walls, a large atrium and an open floor plan. The laboratory spaces face a wooded area through a full height curtain wall that runs the length of the building. Within the lobby are located four freestanding pods clad in copper, stainless steel and zinc that contain the auditorium, two lecture rooms and public gathering space. Faculty offices, located on the second floor, cantilever over the lobby. The second phase of the building, a 20,000 square foot chemistry extension, will continue the formal extrusion and building organization to the South. The new Center provides “an inspirational environment for what is today perhaps the most promising and exciting of all intellectual pursuits”, said Vinoly.

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Posted in Architecture