Thom Mayne’s Cooper Square First New York LEED Academic Building

by Nicholas Tamarin | Wednesday, October 27, 2010

41 Cooper Square Thom Mayne

Although it’s only been open for a little over a year, Thom Mayne’s 41 Cooper Square building is already a contemporary icon, its graceful façade, curving profile featured in countless magazines, websites, and even a television commercial. Now, it’s being recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council as the first academic building in New York City to achieve the organizations highest level of certification, LEED Platinum.

Located on Third Avenue in the city’s historic East Village, the Pritzker Prize-winning Morphosis principal’s building for Cooper Union features energy-saving stainless steel panels offset from a glass and aluminum window wall, a green roof, and a cogeneration plant that provides additional power to the building and recovers waste heat.

41 Cooper Square Thom Mayne

The nine-story, 175,000-square-foot, full-block facility replaces almost 40 percent of the esteemed science and art school’s academic space. With a cost of $150 million, the building features cutting-edge reconfigurable classrooms, laboratories, studios, and public spaces, including a full-height atrium that not only provides a unique circulations system for students and staff but also improves air flow and high levels of interior day lighting.

“41 Cooper Square’s LEED certification demonstrates tremendous green building leadership,” says Rick Fedrizzi, the USGBC’s president and CEO. “The urgency of USGBC’s mission has challenged the industry to move faster and reach further than ever before, and 41 Cooper Square serves as a prime example of just how much we can accomplish.”