On June 2, New York University unveiled a proposal for a new building to rise at Washington Square South and Thompson Street, on the site of the recently razed Holy Trinity Church, a little-loved, brutalist-style building at the heart of the university’s West Village campus.
Designed by Boston-based architecture firm Machado & Silvetti Associates, the new Center for Academic and Spiritual Life will help to meet NYU’s growing demand for worship-oriented space, as well as classrooms, in its campus core.
The structure’s six-story, rectangular box-like massing, however, trespasses outside of the site’s current zoning envelope, which provides room for a much larger, but much slimmer building of 11 stories that set back as the elevation rises. In seeking to obtain a variance from the city’s Board of Standards and Appeals, NYU is not only pitching the design as superior for its own needs, but also as a better neighbor for Greenwich Village.
“They have a good chance of getting it,” said Andrew Cruse, project director at Machado & Silvetti. “NYU has a history of working with the city on these issues.”
Cruse said that the university requested the lowrise, squat shape because it believed it would respond better to the historic Judson Church across the street than would a tall spindly building. The university also posited that the view down 5th Avenue through the Washington Square Arch would be clearer and open to more blue sky with the shorter design.
By giving up the “as-of-right” zoning in favor of this proposal, NYU is forgoing 18,000 square feet of space. While the university is in need of as much extra room as it can get, especially in its core area, the existing zoning presented a serious problem: The diminishing floor plates in the setback tower would be too small for classrooms. NYU is also in the process of decanting classrooms throughout its campus from higher to lower floors, after a study it conducted revealed the inefficiencies of placing such spaces on floors only accessible by elevator.
Part of NYU’s larger 2031 plan to strategize its growing space needs (projected to be as much as six million square feet between now and then), the new facility will provide flexible rooms for secular and faith-based purposes. It will have offices and support and worship areas for the university’s 25 affiliated chaplains, including representatives of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religions.
The center will also provide rehearsal spaces for the student body’s musical endeavors, both degree-based and extracurricular, as well as general-purpose classrooms. The building will connect on most levels to the adjacent Kimmel Center for University Life, and will be tied into NYU’s recently completed cogeneration plant for its mechanical needs.
While these programmatic elements will fill the building’s upper floors, the first floor will retain the site’s previous tenant and function as the new Student Catholic Center of the Archdiocese of New York. NYU purchased the property on May 2, shortly after the Archdiocese demolished its Holy Trinity Church, which functioned as the previous Student Catholic Center. That building was a brutalist concrete shell completed in 1964 and designed by Eggers and Higgins, which also designed Vanderbilt Hall just down the street, an Italianate palace opened in 1951 that houses the law school.
If NYU gets the go-ahead from the Board of Standards and Appeals, construction will begin this fall, with completion scheduled for summer 2012.