Located in the heart of West Harlem in Upper Manhattan, the new Columbia Business School is approximately 492,000 square feet, spanning two buildings, the Henry R. Kravis Hall and David Geffen Hall. The two buildings are defined by interweaving student, faculty, and administrative spaces programmed with public spaces, creating a dynamic place for learning, teaching, and socializing. With such multifunctional programming, the school hopes to foster a sense of community and cultivate collaborative interaction between students, faculty, alumni, and practitioners.

Signature Solution: Both buildings are constructed with a “layer-cake design,” each utilizing custom curtainwalls and interior glass partitions to achieve a sense of openness and allow in as much natural light into the space as possible. However, the site for the Business School sits near the west side highway and elevated train lines, which poses many environmental noise challenges. It was imperative to mitigate noise impact from these external sources and recommend properly attenuated glass for the building’s façade. Cerami’s acoustical team conducted an extensive review of the exterior glazing to ensure proper interior noise levels were achieved and create a comfortable learning environment for the students.

The school’s internal spaces are organized around intersecting networks of social and collaborative learning environments throughout the communicating stairs. To ensure proper sound separation between floors, Cerami’s acoustical team worked closely with the design team to develop tailored acoustical designs for the programming. Furthermore, careful consideration was provided for the glass partitions in lecture halls to control acoustical separation and optimize interior room acoustics for maximized speech intelligibility.

Cerami’s goal in designing the AV, IT, Security and Acoustics at Princeton’s new residential colleges was connections: to campus, to athletics, to recreation, to community and to each other. To that end, we designed an almost completely wireless environment, where residents can eat, sleep, study, socialize, work out and work with invisible infrastructure that is always there to support them. The smart security knows who is permitted where and when and is again, invisible. As are the acoustics, which enhance each space and cater to the particular amenity.

Signature Solution: Cerami received the Leading Infrastructure Project Award from New Jersey’s Alliance for Action for our collaboration on advancing one of Princeton’s highest strategic priorities – the expansion of their residential colleges, serving an additional 500 students, and striving towards a completely wireless environment.

According to the Alliance for Action, this award was given to those “pioneering and landmark construction initiatives that greatly impact the state’s economy.”

Shhh! doesn’t happen here. The new library at The Milstein Center at Barnard College is a far cry from when libraries were sterile buildings full of books and dreadful acoustics. This stunning teaching and learning center brings together technologies and learning spaces in an interactive setting that convenes students and faculty, facilitates collaboration, fosters dialogue and links departments and disciplines across campus. Its library brings together current technologies and learning spaces in interactive settings, and its seven centers offer students the opportunity to explore areas such as design, media, movement, empirical reasoning and computational science. With lots of glass, open spaces and technology intensive spaces, Cerami’s challenge was to assure that there was just the right balance of quiet areas from which to read and study, while also designing dramatic interactive AV systems in this dynamic building. IT systems were designed to support high performance computing for technology intensive spaces, with flexible configurations, and ubiquitous yet invisible wireless coverage.

Flexible classrooms were provisioned with large touch-enabled interactive presentation video screens. The Creativity Lab included very large format touch-interactive display, distance learning capability, and audio conferencing. CSC classrooms included large interactive videowalls with audio and video conferencing capabilities. The Creativity Lab includes the best in educational touch-interactive display, wireless video, and audio.

Signature Solution: Cerami designed a security system that blended into the new open aesthetic and philosophy, yet still makes a statement that Barnard is checking you out as you check out. To that end, Cerami found creative ways to make security equipment disappear into the décor.

We created a 3D model of the library to simulate sound levels, and tested it in our Immersive Studio, so that stakeholders could “listen” to the future space.

This year, Barnard received the AIS/ALA Library Building Award, the only award that recognizes library structures and all aspects of their design. We like knowing we are part of this story of what libraries represent in the 21st Century.