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    © 2020 LERA Consulting Structural Engineers

    Contact Us:  New York | Mumbai | Shanghai | Hong Kong | Seoul

    M/WBE Certified Firm

    Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center 

    Columbia University Medical Center 

    The Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center is a 107,000-sf, 15-story state-of-the-art medical education facility that links students and teachers, function and experience in an interactive, interdisciplinary learning environment, all while creating a new identity and focal point for Columbia University Medical Center’s Washington Heights campus. It aspires to be an iconic facility that heralds a new era in modern medical and graduate education, attracting the world’s top medical students in the process. LERA led the structural design of the project, in addition to performing special inspections.


    Envisioned as a vertical campus of stacked neighborhoods, the building’s main feature is the southern-facing “Study Cascade,” containing vertically interconnected study and social spaces that creatively blend function and experience. The façade is a highly articulated all-glass system that is crucial to the building’s expression. In contrast, the northern half of the building is largely uniform floor-to-floor, and is organized for classrooms and administrative space, in addition to a mid-tower mechanical space that supports Anatomy Labs.


    The building’s structural design achieves efficiency by embracing the layout of the stacked neighborhoods. The structural system of the Cascade leverages the natural interconnections that come from the unique arrangement of the program spaces of the vertical campus. Single-story walls and ramps connect and stiffen the cantilevered slabs, allowing for savings in the slabs’ post-tensioning, rebar and concrete quantities.


    The main structural design challenge was to find vertical load paths through the Study Cascade while respecting the varied spatial planning of the stacked, 2- to 3-story atrium-like clusters of diversified social spaces. To minimize the structure’s impact on these spaces, the cascade floors are supported by a pair of inclined composite concrete columns that are architecturally exposed and cast with high-strength self-consolidating concrete (10 ksi). These two exposed columns slope from the foundation level up to the 8th Floor, directing loads around a column-free auditorium at the base of the Cascade. The thrusts that result from the changes in direction of the sloping columns are resisted by in-floor trusses constructed with post-tensioning and high-strength rebar.


    Completed in 2016, the Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center stands as a nearly identical realization of the architects’ vision—rarely does a completed building so accurately reflect its original renderings.

     

    Location

    New York, NY  

     

    Owner 

    Columbia University 

     

    Architect

    Lead Designer - Diller Scofidio + Renfro 

    Executive Architect - Gensler

     

    Awards 

    Diamond Award - Structural Systems, 2018

    American Council of Engineering Companies New York (ACEC NY) Engineering Excellence Awards

     

    Best in Competition, 2017

    Architecture Honor Award, 2017

    American Insitute of Architects (AIA) New York Design Awards

     

    Visionary Architecture Award, 2017

    Society of American Registered Architects New York (SARA NY)

     

    MASterworks Award - Best New Building, 2017

    The Municipal Art Society of New York (MASNYC)

     

    Award of Merit - Higher Education/Research, 2017

    Engineering News-Record (ENR) New York Best Projects 2017

     

    Award of Merit - Buildings Category, 2017

    Post-Tensioning Institute (PTI) Awards

     

    Second Place: Mid-Rise Buildings, 2017

    American Concrete Institute (ACI) Excellence in Concrete Construction Awards

     

    Finalist - Excellence in Institutional

    Development, 2017

    Urban Land Institute (ULI) New York

     

    Best of Design Award - Facade, 2016

    Architect's Newspaper (AN) 2016 Best of Design Awards

     

    Finalist - Architecture + Engineering, 2016

    Finalist - Unbuilt Institutional, 2016

    Architizer A+ Awards

     

    Excellence in Structural Engineering Award, 2015

    National Council of Structural Engineers Association (NCSEA)

     

    Excellence in Structural Engineering Award, 2015

    Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY)

     

    Award for Innovative Design, 2015

    American Concrete Institute (ACI) Strategic Development Council

     

    53rd Annual Roger H. Corbetta Award, 2014

    Concrete Industry Board (CIB)