New York, New York, USA

Created by Rafael Viñoly Architects, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation–David Rockefeller River Campus expands the grounds of the renowned biomedical research university by two acres and adds several new buildings with state-of-the-art laboratory facilities designed for complex and advanced biomedical research.

Rafael Viñoly aims to maintain a low building profile and take advantage of the existing air rights over FDR drive is consistent with the University’s overriding view of the image it wants to project to the community, both local and international.

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation–David Rockefeller River Campus expansion project has been awarded a 2021 International Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

It will connect with existing research buildings and centralize community amenities on a new landscaped platform that sits 16 feet over one of Manhattan’s major arterial waterfront highways.

The campus building extension is discreetly sited so as to be invisible from the University’s main entrance and historic campus walks.

Its presence is marked only by two grand public stairways that extend the landmark gardens from the main campus walk up to two new acres of gardens overlooking Manhattan’s East River.

The pedestrian-oriented gardens provide healthy outdoor respite for the campus community and serve as access to campus amenities: a new dining commons, a new conference center, and centralized offices for the University’s senior leadership.

The research facility, known as the Kravis Research Building, occupies two open floors of contiguous laboratory space, each approximately 1,000 feet long and 105 feet deep.

Each floor is bisected by a large collaborative zone with kitchen and dining facilities. The collaborative space captures River views to the east and looks west across the new Sze-Donohue Amphitheater to the historic limestone facade of Welch Hall.

When seen from New York City’s East River, the building’s 1,000-foot-long continuous horizontal band of steel and glass gently underscores and unifies the beautiful, but disparate campus buildings that had grown organically and by accretion over the last 120 years.

At grade, between the building and the East River, the project provides a fully rebuilt and landscaped linear public park that is open to the community and maintained by the University. It is actively used throughout the day by cyclists, joggers, sightseers, and pedestrians.

A campus that five years ago had no coherent identity from the east, a limited potential for growth, and obsolete laboratory space that limited research and the recruitment of talented researchers, now has a singular presence that is clear yet understated, two acres of new gardens, and 160,000 square feet of new research space that interconnects ten existing buildings on campus with centralized common and convening spaces.

Project: The Rockefeller University Stavros Niarchos Foundation – David Rockefeller River Campus
Architects: Rafael Viñoly Architects
Client: The Rockefeller University
General Contractor: Turner Construction Company
Photographers: Halkin Mason Photography and Brad Feinknopf Photography