Brown Institute for Media Innovation

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Pulitzer Hall, School of Journalism, Columbia University
New York, NY
Completed 2014
4,600 sq. ft.

Award of Merit, AIA New York Chapter
Award of Merit, International Association of Lighting Designers

The Brown Institute for Media Innovation, located on the ground floor of the historic School of Journalism building, acts as an incubator for new platforms that engage the technological transformation of journalistic practices. The Institute combines faculty offices, meeting rooms and a large open work environment configured to maximize the spatial qualities, daylighting and visual openness of the existing double height volume. A suspended mezzanine of glazed offices accessed via a steel and concrete catwalk overlooks the main incubator space and shelters a series of collaborative ‘garages’ below. In the main space, mobile work tables can be reconfigured by the Institute fellows or ‘dock’ into the perimeter of the space to access integrated flat-screens. The architecture of the incubator is defined by a continuous internal façade that resurfaces the original room, split horizontally into a millwork base and a translucent scrim. While the walnut base provides for physical engagement through built-in seating, storage and a large bleacher stair, the scrim acts to mediate light, conceal new technical systems, provide acoustical treatment and act as a screen for large-scale projection.

Project Details

Client:  Columbia University, The Pussycat Foundation
Project team:  Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki, David J. Lewis; John Morrison, project architect; Keith Greenwald, Emily Greene, Kristen Alexander, Elizabeth Kuwada, John Loercher
Construction manager:  Shawmut Construction
Structural engineer:  Robert Silman Associates
MEP/FP engineer:  Buro Happold
Lighting consultant:  Buro Happold
LEED consultant:  YR&G

Photography: Michael Moran