LERA was the structural engineer for the 115,000-sf (10,700-sm) New Academic Building for the School of Public Health at SUNY Downstate, which will serve as Brooklyn’s only academic medical center. The facility contains healthcare simulation centers, research center laboratories, classrooms, a data center and administrative space, and is divided into three distinct “bars”: research laboratories on the top, office and additional research facilities in the middle and social and teaching spaces on the bottom.

The building’s defining feature is a set of three architecturally exposed and illuminated V-columns that carry the load of the western half of the building, touching the ground at three points and creating a 30-ft-high public entry plaza.