The Forum, a New Facility on Manhattanville Campus, by Renzo Piano

Columbia University opens The Forum, a new facility for meeting and discussion its third building on its Manhattanville Campus. Completing the First Group of Italian architect Renzo Piano-designed Buildings, The Forum Provides a Gateway to an Urban Campus of Columbia University.

The Forum by Renzo Piano. Photography by Frank Oudeman, courtesy of Columbia University

The Forum, designed by RPBW, as it’s called, is the third component to open at Columbia University’s new Manhattanville campus: a new 5,203-square-meter (56,000-square-foot), three-story facility that completes the first ensemble of new buildings on Columbia’s Manhattanville campus in West Harlem. The Forum adds long-needed space at Columbia for academic conferences, meetings and public discussion to the new campus’s already completed buildings dedicated to arts presentation and neuroscience research.

Triangular in plan to match its distinctive site at West 125th Street and Broadway, The Forum is visually transparent at street level like its RPBW-designed neighbors, the Lenfest Center for the Arts and the Jerome L. Greene Science Center. Anyone may pass freely from the sidewalk into a Forum café with Wi-Fi, an information center, and a ground-floor space where Columbia’s schools and divisions will offer programming. After the inaugural year, the program space will also be available by reservation for community groups. On the upper floors, The Forum houses a 437-seat auditorium, a variety of meeting rooms, and offices that will initially be used by two related University initiatives to address a range of public challenges facing our society: Columbia World Projects and the Obama Foundation Scholars.

“In designing the master plan for the campus and its first three buildings, we wanted to help Columbia as a global university in the city and for the city,” said Piano. “So New York’s streets and sidewalks are woven into the fabric of the campus. This is not like the campus of earlier centuries. All the buildings are transparent, open to the public, and have amenities for the local community at street level, including plazas and green spaces for everyone to share. The architecture draws on the neighborhood’s industrial vocabulary, as you see for example with the exposed structural elements inside The Forum. We think of these buildings as machines – new kinds of machines for doing scientific research, for presenting the arts, and now, with The Forum, for bringing people together and communicating.”

The facility will serve the entire University community, while providing a welcoming, transparent gateway to the 6.88-Ha (17-acre) campus for students, faculty, guest scholars and members of the general public. Situated at the site’s southeastern-most corner, the Forum is part of a new cityscape, 17 years in the making, rising at the corner of 125th Street and Broadway in the West Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan.

Conceived as a new kind of open, urban campus to support Columbia’s academic mission while also providing a shared resource for the local community, the Manhattanville campus is publicly accessible throughout at street level, incorporating spaces for public engagement in all its buildings, as well as publicly accessible open spaces. Facilities already in use include free public programming such as a public neuroscience Education Lab for local students and adults of all ages, a community Wellness Center with screening and outreach programs designed and staffed by Columbia physicians, and the new home of Columbia’s Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery with a range of exhibits built around local artists and themes.

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The Forum, as seen from across 125th Street. It’s part of the university’s Manhattanville campus, which includes a series of buildings and public spaces bordered by 125th St., Broadway, Riverside Drive, and 133rd St. Photography by Frank Oudeman, courtesy of Columbia University

Offices on the upper floors of The Forum, whose executive architect was Dattner Architects and associate architect was Caples Jefferson Architects. Photography by Frank Oudeman, courtesy of Columbia University

Lenfest Center for the Arts by Renzo Piano. Photography by Frank Oudeman, courtesy of Columbia University

The Forum (right) is joined by the Jerome L. Green Science Center (center) Lenfest Center for the Arts (left), and a small plaza. The new Diller Scofidio + Renfro–designed business school can be seen at far left, under construction. Photography by Frank Oudeman, courtesy of Columbia University

The other buildings at the Manhattanville site also feature some publicly-accessible spaces and amenities: the science center includes an education lab and community wellness center, while the art center's Wallach Gallery is free and open to all. Photography by Frank Oudeman, courtesy of Columbia University

Skecth. The Forum by Renzo Piano. Image courtesy of Columbia University

Site plan. The Forum by Renzo Piano. Image courtesy of Columbia University

Ground floor plan. The Forum by Renzo Piano. Image courtesy of Columbia University

First and second floor plans. The Forum by Renzo Piano. Image courtesy of Columbia University

Axonometric. The Forum by Renzo Piano. Image courtesy of Columbia University

Section. The Forum by Renzo Piano. Image courtesy of Columbia University

Elevation. The Forum by Renzo Piano. Image courtesy of Columbia University

Construction details. The Forum by Renzo Piano. Image courtesy of Columbia University

Construction detail. The Forum by Renzo Piano. Image courtesy of Columbia University

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More information

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Architects

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Renzo Piano Building Workshop in collaboration with Dattner Architects and Caples Jefferson Architects (NewYork), architects.

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Design Team

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A.Chaaya (partner in charge), S.Drouin (associate), S.Bastien, H.Nakatani, with C.Anderson, J.Phommachakr, C.Ruiz, A.Saoud, and M.Van der Staay and Y.Ergecen, S.Y.Park, C.Sun; D.Tsagkaropoulos (CGI); O.Aubert, C.Colson, Y.Kyrkos (models).

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AOR team

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R.Dattner (Principal), B.Greenberg (Principal), D.Heuberger (Principal), C.Selby (Associate Principal), J.Cho (Associate), M.Lee, D.Kichler, Y.Kim, M.Kolberg, K.Rehkemper, V.Sibona, M.Thomas, Z.Wu, L.Brown.

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Associate Architect Team

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E.Jefferson (Principal), S.Caples (Principal), M.Behrman (Assoc. Principal), J.Paz, N.Flanagan, T.Urosa.

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Consultans

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AECOM (structure and cost); WSP Group (MEP); Arup (acoustics, auditorium and IT); Cerami (A/V); Tillotson Design Associates (lighting); Jenkins & Huntington (vertical transportation); Front, Inc. (façade); Stantec (Civil Engineer); Simpson Gumpertz Hegel (code), e4 (sustainability); James Corner Field Operations (landscape architect); Aggleton & Associates (security); Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers (geotechnical engineer); The Clarient Group (radio frequency); VJ Associates (CU cost consultant); Pentagram (graphics consultant).

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Client

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Columbia University.

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Dates

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2011 - 2018.

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Location

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On the corner of 125th Street and Broadway. Manhattan, USA.

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Photography

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Frank Oudeman.

RENZO PIANO

Renzo Piano was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1937 to a family of builders. He graduated from Milan Polytechnic in 1964 and began to work with experimental lightweight structures and basic shelters. In 1971, he founded the Piano & Rogers studio and, together with Richard Rogers, won the competition for the Centre Pompidou in Paris. From the early 1970s to the 1990s, Piano collaborated with engineer Peter Rice, founding Atelier Piano & Rice in 1977. In 1981, he established the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, with offices today in Genoa, Paris and New York. Renzo Piano has been awarded the highest honors in architecture, including; the Pritzker Prize; RIBA Royal Gold Medal; Medaille d’Or, UIA; Erasmus Prize; and most recently, the Gold Medal of the AIA.

Renzo Piano Building Workshop. RPBW

The Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) was established in 1981 by Renzo Piano with offices in Genoa, Italy and Paris, France. The practice has since expanded and now also operates from New York.

RPBW is led by 10 partners, including founder and Pritzker Prize laureate, architect Renzo Piano.

The practice permanently employs about 130 architects together with a further 30 support staff including 3D visualization artists, model makers, archivers, administrative and secretarial staff.

Their staff has a wide experience of working in multi-disciplinary teams on building projects in France, Italy and abroad.

As architects, they are involved in the projects from start to finish. They usually provide full architectural design services and consultancy services during the construction phase. Their design skills extend beyond mere architectural services. Their work also includes interior design services, town planning and urban design services, landscape design services and exhibition design services.

RPBW has successfully undertaken and completed over 140 projects around the world.

Currently, among the main projects in progress are: the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles; the École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay; the Paddington Square in London and; the Toronto Courthouse.

Major projects already completed include: the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas; the Kanak Cultural Center in Nouméa, New Caledonia; the Kansaï International Airport Terminal Building in Osaka; the Beyeler Foundation Museum in Basel; the reconstruction of the Potsdamer Platz area in Berlin; the Rome Auditorium; the New York Times Building in New York; the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco; the Chicago Art Institute expansion in Chicago, Illinois; The Shard in London; Columbia University’s Manhattanville development project in New York City; the Harvard museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the Intesa Sanpaolo office building in Turin, Italy; the Kimbell Art Museum expansion in Texas; the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Valletta City Gate in Malta; the Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center in Athens; the Centro Botín in Santander; the New Paris Courthouse and others throughout the world.

Exhibitions of Renzo Piano and RPBW’s works have been held in many cities worldwide, including at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2018.

Published on: November 9, 2018

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