The North Campus Residential Expansion at Cornell University is a 72,092.76-square-metre student life residential complex for first year and sophomore students, providing 2,000 beds on two separate adjacent sites on Cornell’s North Campus. The complex is a programmatic synthesis of residential rooms, a dining area and collaborative study and learning spaces organized around outdoor courtyards to meet the University’s growing class size and its commitment to provide exceptional underclassman living learning experiences. The residences are organized into three to five-storey courtyard buildings to engage the adjacent campus, to respond to existing site conditions, and to help foster the variety of interstitial and serendipitous collegial exchanges crucial to student life.
Central to this organization is a 1,000-seat dining hall that offers a variety of micro-restaurants to enhance the student life experience. Red and grey terracotta masonry walls with punched windows complement the neighboring north campus buildings by acting as modern re-interpretations of the existing residential facilities, while upper-level residential lounges—located at building ends and corners—are wrapped in a curtainwall to capture campus views and serve as visual beacons. A highly transparent ground floor promotes outward social interaction with the entire community. Lake source cooling and rooftop photovoltaics assist in achieving LEED Gold certification.
