Campus Architecture Database: Teaching and Learning Center

Columbia University Medical Center, New York, N.Y.

Building Type: Medical

Construction Type: Renovation

Cost: $15-million

Square Footage: 30,000

Architect: Mitchell/Giurgola Architects

Contractor: Structure Tone

Opened: 2009

This new classroom and study facility, located in space formerly occupied by library stacks, is shared by several units of the medical center—the School of Nursing, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health, and the School of Dental and Oral Surgery, and its opening coincides with the replacement of lecture-and-microscope-based teaching approach with a team-based, computer-aided curricular model. The project involved reorganizing the library and its collection, constructing high density shelving, and building a new stairway to connect the circulation desk, reading room, and stacks, which are located on separate floors. The project provides 15 new classrooms, six of which are divisible with movable partitions, as well as small-group and individual study areas. There are also large reading rooms, one for those who prefer quiet and the other for those who don’t.

(Photo: Albert Vecerka/Esto )

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