DS+R's Medical Center Completed in New York

The Vagelos Education Center is a 100,000-square-foot (9,290-sm), 14-story glass tower containing technologically advanced classrooms, collaboration spaces, and a modern simulation center "to reflect how medicine is taught, learned, and practiced in the 21st century," according to a press release from Columbia University. The building takes its name from donor P. Roy Vagelos, MD, and his wife, Diana Vagelos, whose name also graces Barnard College's Diana Center, an institution affiliated with Columbia. 

Completion of the DS+R-design has been much anticipated since it was unveiled in 2012 (construction started in September 2013), thanks to the slender, attention-getting south facade, which is articulated as a 14-story "Study Cascade" connected by a network of stairs. The interiors of the Study Cascade, which open onto south-facing outdoor spaces and terraces, are meant to be conducive to collaborative, team-based learning and teaching.

DS+R partner Elizabeth Diller reiterates this in the press release: "Space matters for structured and informal learning. To support Columbia’s progressive medical education program, we designed a building that will nurture collaboration. Its defining feature is the Study Cascade – a 14-story network of vertically linked spaces in a variety of sizes, both focused and social, private and communal, indoors and out."

The expression of the Study Cascade is accentuated by ultra-clear, low-iron glass structured with glass fins and GFRC panels that cover the floor slabs and some of the walls. Ceramic-frit patterns cover the glazing along the majority of the east and west facades, meaning that solar control at the Study Cascade happens through operable shades. The building is most dramatic at night, when the interiors of the Study Cascade shine through the clear glass and the building resembles a section drawing built at full scale.