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SEPTEMBER 4, 2008 – Yale University President Richard C. Levin announced today that Robert A.M. Stern Architects has been selected to design two new residential colleges of Yale College. The new colleges will expand the average undergraduate population of 5,250 by 15 percent to approximately 6,000, allowing Yale to prepare a larger number of talented and promising students of all backgrounds for leadership and service. The colleges will be built in a triangle north of New Haven's Grove Street Cemetery bounded by Prospect, Canal, and Sachem Streets and are expected to open in 2013.

"We are pleased that Robert A.M. Stern Architects, founded and led by Bob Stern, our distinguished dean of the School of Architecture, will be designing Yale's thirteenth and fourteenth residential colleges," Levin said. "Bob has designed many outstanding academic facilities around the country, and his knowledge of Yale and its architectural tradition is deep and profound. For the past decade, he, along with former Architecture Deans Cesar Pelli and Tom Beeby, has advised me on every major building project we have undertaken. His understanding of Yale coupled with his appreciation of how good design can foster community will lead to a superior result."

Stern follows fellow Yale alumni James Gamble Rogers and Eero Saarinen, who designed ten of Yale's twelve existing colleges. "Yale's residential college system has helped place Yale College at the pinnacle of undergraduate education," said Stern. "It is an honor to work on such an important expansion of a tradition that contributes so much to the life of the students during their time at Yale." The new colleges will follow Yale's proven model with a master, dean, fellows, and students forming a close-knit community, supported by the highest caliber public and private spaces for living and study.

For more information, see Yale University's news page

JULY 14, 2008 – The National Building Museum will present the Tenth Vincent Scully Prize to Robert A.M. Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture and founder and senior partner of Robert A.M. Stern Architects, at a gala celebration on November 12, 2008. David Schwarz, chairman of the Prize jury, said Stern was selected "for his years of teaching at Columbia and Yale Universities, his leadership as dean of the Yale School of Architecture, and his seminal publications reflecting on the history of architecture in New York."

The Vincent Scully Prize and endowment were established by the National Building Museum in 1999 in honor of Vincent Scully, Sterling Professor Emeritus of the History of Art at Yale University, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Miami, and one of the world's most influential architectural historians and critics. The Prize has come to be known as one of the most important awards in the field, recognizing the importance of ideas and scholarship that lead to significant contributions to our built environment. The nine previous recipients were Vincent Scully, Jane Jacobs, Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, His Highness the Aga Khan, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Phyllis Lambert, Witold Rybczynski, and Richard Moe.

The National Building Museum, located in Washington, DC, is dedicated to exploring and celebrating architecture, design, engineering, construction, and planning. Chartered by Congress in 1980 and open to the public since 1985, it is a vital forum for the exchange of ideas and information about the built environment. Mr. Stern has served as a member of the museum's board of trustees since 1999.

JULY 12, 2008 – Today the City of Calabasas, California, dedicated its new Civic Center, a complex that provides a new City Hall and a municipal library organized around a variety of outdoor spaces, including a civic plaza, an olive grove, and an amphitheater. The City Hall will include a 125-seat council chamber and well as a service counter for day-to-day municipal business. The library will house traditional library functions along with an acoustically refined 200-seat multipurpose meeting room, which will serve as a venue for spoken word events as well as small-scale musical performances. The City of Calabasas is committed in its charter to a high level of stewardship of its attractive natural environment, and the Civic Center is designed to achieve Gold LEED™ certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Harley Ellis Devereaux of Los Angeles was architect-of-record.

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JUNE 6, 2008 – The 1.4 million-square-foot, 975-foot-high Comcast Center, the new headquarters for the Comcast Corporation, rises 57 stories above Suburban Station in Center City Philadelphia. The tower is clad in silvery high-performance Viracon® glass with ultra-clear, low-iron glass at the building's corners and crown. Comcast Center and its south-facing, half-acre plaza straddle the underground tracks and concourse of Suburban Station—Philadelphia's primary commuter rail gateway. A 110-foot-high light-flooded public winter garden connects the concourse with its shops and food hall (still under construction) to the tower and plaza above. The winter garden features a double-skin glass curtain wall with sunscreens and louvers that optimize daylight and views while modulating daily and seasonal thermal performance. Radiant heating, thermal extraction, and displacement ventilation combine to provide exceptional energy performance for this civic-scaled space. Three three-story "sky-atria" in the lower portion of the tower's south facade overlook the plaza and provide tenants with unique and identifiable homes. Comcast Center is expected to receive LEED™-CS certification.

The building was developed by Liberty Property Trust. Bill Hankowsky, chief executive officer of Liberty Property Trust, developer of the building, said, "Comcast Center is not just a building. It breaks new ground on several fronts—it creates a dynamic new experience for commuters entering their city; it provides a stimulating, efficient home that allows the state's largest corporation to continue to grow and contribute to the city's financial vitality; and it serves as a beacon of sustainability in a world striving for responsible environmental stewardship."

"This is a defining moment in Comcast's history," said Brian Roberts, chairman and chief executive officer of Comcast, who dedicated the evening to his father, Comcast chairman and founder, Ralph Roberts. "Our vision was to create a world class home for Comcast employees in the City of Philadelphia. We have been committed to this great city for over 40 years and this fantastic green building is the result." Comcast leases more than 90% of the building.

"Comcast Center is a monument to our collective faith in the power of architecture to convey not only the dignity of this great city but also its new energy," said architect Robert A.M. Stern, founder of Robert A.M. Stern Architects and Dean of the Yale School of Architecture. "I am grateful to have played a part in this inspiring Philadelphia story."

Kendall / Heaton Associates of Houston, Texas, served as architect-of-record.

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JANUARY 29, 2008 – Silverstein Properties President and CEO Larry A. Silverstein today unveiled Robert A.M. Stern Architects' design for 99 Church Street, an 80-story hotel and residential tower in Lower Manhattan. Located between Barclay Street and Park Place, the elegant 912-foot tower will be home to a 175-room Four Seasons Hotel with 143 private residences above. The project will also include a public park.

The limestone and cast stone shaft of the tower rises to a dramatic skyline profile of full-floor penthouses and setback terraces. The hotel entrance on Barclay Street leads visitors into four floors of lobbies, lounges, a restaurant (which also has an entrance of its own on Church Street), ballrooms, meeting facilities, spa, fitness center, and pool. A separate entrance and lobby at 30 Park Place serves the residences.

"Our partnership with Four Seasons at 99 Church Street serves as further validation of Downtown's ongoing transformation into a dynamic, sustainable and unparalleled urban community," said Mr. Silverstein. Kathleen Taylor, President and Chief Operating Officer of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, said, "This development, with the combined vision of Silverstein Properties and Robert Stern, promises to be an exciting project as it reinvents the historic downtown district."

"99 Church will counterpoint the glass-and-steel office towers that Larry Silverstein and his organization are building along Greenwich Street, and together these buildings will help Lower Manhattan realize its potential as a great place to live and work. I am proud to be a part of this effort," said Robert A.M. Stern, founder and senior partner of Robert A.M. Stern Architects and dean of the Yale School of Architecture. Silverstein Properties is simultaneously developing four office towers at the World Trade Center: the Freedom Tower and three office buildings on Greenwich Street.

Yabu Pushelberg is the interior designer for the hotel guest rooms. SLCE Architects is architect-of-record.

(Rendering by dbox)

JANUARY 10, 2008 – Aviva France announced today that Robert A.M. Stern Architects has been selected to design a new office tower at La Défense. Tour Carpe Diem will be an important step forward in the evolution of La Défense toward pedestrian-friendly urbanism and environmentally responsible architecture. The 35-story, 45,000 m2 building connects the raised esplanade—the "dalle" that continues the axis of the Champs-Elysées through the district—and the urban fabric of the city of Courbevoie to the north.

"This is a fantastic opportunity to place greater emphasis on the human dimension at La Défense," said Robert A.M. Stern. "We are very impressed with the efforts of EPAD [The Public Authority for Development of La Défense] and the city of Courbevoie to expand and revitalize this important business center. Aviva has seized the moment to set a new course with this ambitious civic-minded project."

Tour Carpe Diem will significantly exceed French regulations for environmentally responsible development. The building's triple-glazed curtain wall incorporates sunshades that respond to the solar orientation of each facade and innovative grilles that provide natural ventilation to reduce dependence on air conditioning. Additional sustainable design strategies include solar water heating, a heat recovery system, and high-performance lighting.

Robert A.M. Stern Architects was selected to design the project in a three-way design competition; the other competitors were Jacques Ferrier Architecte (Paris) and Foster + Partners (London).

Aviva is the leading provider of life insurance and pensions savings in Europe with substantial positions in other markets around the world, making it the world's fifth-largest insurance group. Aviva's principal business activities are long-term savings, asset management, and general insurance, with worldwide total revenue of €61.9 billion and assets under management of €543 billion at 31 December 2006

SRA Architects of Châtillon, France, will serve as associate architect for the project.

(Rendering by studio amd)

OCTOBER 5, 2007 – The Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia broke ground today on a new home, Bavaro Hall, to be located on Emmet Street in Charlottesville, adjacent to the school's facilities in Ruffner Hall (1973). The four-story building will nearly double the space currently available to the school's academic, research, and clinical programs. The building will be named for Anthony D. "Wally" Bavaro, who as a history teacher and football coach in Malden and Chelsea, Massachusetts, became a mentor to the donor, Dan Meyers, chair of the Curry School Foundation.

Located on a steeply sloped site at the western perimeter of the University's historic Central Grounds, Bavaro Hall will feature simple massing and traditional detailing – red brick and limestone facades with painted wood trim, six-over-six double-hung windows, and metal standing-seam roof – screening Ruffner Hall behind a fresh face that is in keeping with the architectural traditions first established at the Lawn by Thomas Jefferson. The new building will work together with the old to define a landscaped courtyard framed between two open-air arcades linking the two buildings, creating a campus within a campus for the Curry School.

The ground floor, partially tucked into the slope, will house the clinics that distinguish the School, with a public entrance at grade off Emmet Street. Primary access for students and faculty will be one level above via an existing pedestrian bridge that crosses Emmet Street and new cascading steps that lead from the street up to the courtyard at either end of the building. The first floor will accommodate heavily-trafficked uses, such as student services, the dean's suite, conference and meeting spaces, a coffee bar, and the Commons, the School's primary indoor social space, which opens directly to the courtyard for indoor/outdoor events. Two generously proportioned naturally lit stairs will lead up to departmental suites, faculty offices, and meeting rooms on the upper two floors. The 65,000-square-foot Bavaro Hall is scheduled for completion in early 2010.

(Rendering by Michael McCann)

MAY 16, 2007 -- The Preservation League of New York State selected the Excellence Charter School of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn for its prestigious Excellence in Historic Preservation Award, which recognizes individuals and organizations for demonstrating an outstanding commitment to the preservation of New York State’s irreplaceable architectural heritage.

James W. Naughton’s 1880 gauged red brick and brownstone school building was abandoned in the late 1970s after a major fire. Uncommon Schools, a non-for-profit organization known for developing urban college preparatory charter schools in the northeast chose the building as the site for its new academy in Brooklyn – the Excellence Charter School – after an exhaustive search. “The formerly abandoned Public School 70 is an important part of the urban fabric of Bedford-Stuyvesant, and for too long, it stood as a dangerous symbol of neglect in the neighborhood it once served,” said Jay DiLorenzo, President of the Preservation League. “The quality of the restoration of this once-derelict building and the sensitive new addition, along with the return of this historic building to academic use, is truly exemplary.”

“The lowest-risk strategy would have been to demolish the charred shell of the building,” said David Saltzman, Executive Director of the Robin Hood Foundation and a trustee of the Excellence Charter School. “It required the extraordinary vision of Robert A.M. Stern Architects to reincarnate this lost treasure as a new charter school.” Contributing to the success of restoration effort were structural engineer Robert Silman Associates, P.C. of New York; mechanical engineer MGJ Associates, Inc. of New York; civil engineer Leonard Strandberg Associates of Staten Island; and builder S. DiGiacomo & Son, Inc. of New York.

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(Photo by Albert Večerka)

FEBRUARY 8, 2007 -- New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today announced plans to build the first permanent home for the Museum for African Art, the only independent museum in the United States dedicated solely to African Art. The first new museum building on New York's Museum Mile since the completion of the Guggenheim in 1959, the Museum for African Art will be a place for art and also a gathering place for the vast African diaspora and for the vibrant cultural community that is New York City. The museum will stand at the corner of 110th Street and Fifth Avenue where it will create a cultural gateway to Harlem.

The museum, designed in close conjunction with the 19-story residential tower that houses it, will provide the museum with 90,000 square feet on three floors above grade and two below. Its L-shaped plan will cradle a plaza on the circle that faces west toward Central Park. The strong character of the trapezoidal windows with bronze-painted aluminum mullions set into stone panels on the museum's north and west facades suggests – in an abstract way – woven patterns inspired by traditional African art. While the rhythm of the museum facade is carried upward to the residences above, the museum will maintain its own distinct identity within the larger structure.

Visitors will enter the museum through a glass entry vestibule off Fifth Avenue into a 44-foot-high lobby with one wall and ceiling composed of a continuous curving expanse of etimoe wood, a sustainable wood from West Africa. The lobby will lead to the gift shop, ticketing and information, an auditorium, a café, coat rooms, and toilets, as well as to an interactive room for orientation and an arts workshop.

The grand stair will be embraced in a circular perforated-metal drum with diamond-shaped apertures in a spiral pattern, which will glow like a lantern. The second floor will provide 16,000 square feet of flexible gallery space, typically to be organized as three temporary exhibition galleries and two galleries for the permanent collection that can be experienced individually or in a loop. The public spaces of the museum will culminate on the third floor with a gracious event space that will include a roof terrace offering dramatic views west over Central Park.

Administrative offices will also be housed on the third floor, along with the library, the boardroom, the auction room, and catering kitchens. The two levels below grade will accommodate conservation, documentation, and collection storage.

SLCE Architects is the associate architect for this project.

(Rendering by Neoscape)

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JANUARY 24, 2007 -- The University of Nevada, Las Vegas will break ground today for Greenspun Hall, the five-story building that will be the new home of the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs. The 120,000-square-foot building will provide classrooms, labs, departmental suites, faculty offices, and radio and television broadcasting facilities for the College, and bring its programs – Communications Studies, Criminal Justice, Environmental Studies, Public Administration, Journalism and Media Studies, and Social Work – under one roof.

Greenspun Hall will occupy a prominent corner of the campus where the southern boundary of the UNLV campus meets Maryland Parkway. As the first project for the University’s “Midtown UNLV” initiative, the new building will re-engage the campus with the city that has grown up around it. A tower and an urban gateway will define the University's edge, while at the southeast and northwest corners of the site two expansive landscaped stairs will ascend to a broad courtyard shaded by a louvered canopy that will tame the harsh desert sun, yet allow it to play across the trees, columns, and open space below. This louvered canopy, the most visible of the building's many environmentally sensitive design features, will reduce solar gain on the building's facades and roofs and support a large photovoltaic array that will produce a significant portion of the power required to run the building.

The design for the new complex complements the Modernist vocabulary of UNLV's existing buildings, all built since the 1950s. Its palette of tawny brick and red sandstone will evoke the desert, and landscape elements designed to thrive in the arid climate will provide respite along the shaded walks and outdoor spaces between the buildings.

HKS is the architect-of-record.

(rendering by RAMSA)

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JANUARY 22, 2007 -- Three upcoming panel discussions will celebrate the November 2006 publication of New York 2000: Architecture and Urbanism Between the Bicentennial and the Millennium, written by Robert A.M. Stern, David Fishman, and Jacob Tilove and published by The Monacelli Press.

On Thursday, January 25, at 6:30 pm at the Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall, Columbia University, the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture will present a round-table discussion "New York 2000: The Book" with opening remarks by Robert A.M. Stern. Joan Ockman, Director of the Buell Center, will moderate a panel that includes Robert Beauregard, Professor of Urban Planning, Columbia University, and author of The Urban Moment: Cosmopolitan Essays on the Late Twentieth Century City; Kenneth Jackson, Jacques Barzun Professor of History and the Social Sciences, Columbia University, and author of The Encyclopedia of New York City; Suzanne Stephens, architecture critic and Deputy Editor, Architectural Record; and Mike Wallace, Distinguished Professor of History, City University of New York, and author of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. The event is free and open to the public. For more information please call 212-854-8165 or go to the Buell Center Web site.

The Architectural League of New York has organized two programs to take place at Caspary Hall at Rockefeller University in New York that will both be introduced by Robert A.M. Stern. On Tuesday, February 6, at 6:30, "The City as Stage" will feature panelists Dan Biederman, President, Bryant Park Corporation; Anita Contini, founder and former director, Creative Time; Alanna Heiss, Director, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center; Michael Sorkin, Director, Graduate Urban Design Program, City College of New York; and Tupper Thomas, President, Prospect Park Alliance.

On Tuesday, February 13, at 6:30, "The Good, the Bad, and the Appropriate" will feature panelists Kent Barwick, President, Municipal Art Society; Laurie Beckelman, former Chair, New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission; Andrew Berman, Executive Director, Greenwich Village Historic Preservation Society; and Paul Byard, Director of the Historic Preservation Program at Columbia University GSAPP. The discussion will be moderated by Paul Goldberger. Admission is free for League members, $10 for non-members and guests. League members may make reservations for themselves and one guest by calling 212-980-3767 or emailing info@ArchLeague.org. For more information please visit www.archleague.org.

JANUARY 6, 2007 -- The City of Calabasas, California, broke ground today for the new Calabasas Civic Center, a 56,000 square-foot facility that will create a permanent home for the city hall and library. Calabasas, located in the northwest corner of Los Angeles County, was incorporated in 1992. For the past decade its city offices and library have been located in rented space. The new Civic Center will give the City of Calabasas its first opportunity to express in architectural terms its civic ideals of community and environmental stewardship.

The Center will be situated on a gently sloping 7.7 acre site near arid hills that are a gateway to the Santa Monica Mountains. The arcaded library and city hall will be contemporary interpretations of the Mediterranean style architecture prevalent in Southern California, and will be sited informally to create a variety of outdoor spaces, including a grove of olive trees, a civic plaza, and an amphitheater, that together will form the public heart of Calabasas.

The city hall will contain a two-story Council Chamber, seating 125, which will be the focal point for city activities. It will combine traditional wood paneling, beams, and decorative lighting with up-to-date audiovisual and communications systems. The building will provide a public counter for day-to-day interaction with local government and offices for elected officials, the city manager, and department heads. These, along with the workplaces for city staff, will be infused with natural light and have a close connection to the outdoors.

The library will have a tall central hall illuminated by clerestory windows. Together with traditional library functions, the library will contain an acoustically refined 200-seat multipurpose meeting room, which will serve as a venue for spoken word and small-scale musical events.

The City of Calabasas is committed in the city charter to a high level of stewardship of its attractive natural environment, and the Civic Center is designed to achieve Gold LEED^™ certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Environmentally sound design strategies include the use of local and recycled materials, drought-tolerant landscaping, natural daylighting, and low energy lighting and environmental control systems.

The project is designed in association with Harley Ellis Devereaux of Los Angeles, California.

(Rendering by Tom Schaller)

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DECEMBER 15, 2006 -- The University of Michigan’s Board of Regents today unanimously approved our design for the new North Quad Residential and Academic Complex on the Ann Arbor campus. The design reinforces the campus's unique architectural and planning traditions, with massing and forms based on the very special blend of Collegiate Gothic and the Arts & Crafts which uniquely identify the campus. Working in the first half of the twentieth century, architects Emil Lorch, Pond & Pond, and Albert Kahn designed such buildings as the Union, the League, and Lorch Hall, creating a rich tapestry of deep red brick, stone, and slate to shape arcades of flattened arches, grand engaged colonnades, and landmark towers. Just as we did in designing Weill Hall (2006), which now constitutes the southern gateway to the main campus, we looked to this tradition as we approached the design of the North Quad in order to shape a new university environment where living, learning, and academic support will coexist on a full block anchoring the northwest corner of the main campus.

The North Quad accommodates 360,000 square feet of offices and meeting rooms for various academic departments, classrooms, laboratories, residential suites for students, dining, and social spaces on a tight urban site where the University meets the surrounding town. To mitigate the project's density, the buildings are arranged around interconnected courtyards. Welcoming plazas at the northwest and southeast corners of the block open up the quad to its surroundings. To the west, a café and gallery spaces pick up the vibrant retail rhythm of State Street. Along Huron Street, the preserved facade of the Carnegie Library is incorporated into the residential building, which will be the first residential building to be built at the University of Michigan since 1968. At the corner of State and Huron Streets, a broad plaza dramatically welcomes the community to the campus from downtown Ann Arbor.

The massing of the North Quad's buildings rises in a counterclockwise spiral from the dining hall, with its large bay windows overlooking Rackham Green, to the boldly shaped tower at the southeast plaza, balancing the mass of Rackham Hall. The tower, visible from as far away as the Diag, terminates the axis of South Thayer Street, thereby constituting a new icon on the Michigan skyline.

The project is being designed in association with EYP/Einhorn Yaffee Prescott.

(Rendering by Michael McCann)

OCTOBER 13, 2006 -- Today the new home for the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, Joan and Sanford Weill Hall, was dedicated on the University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus. The new building provides classrooms, offices, and social spaces, all under one roof in support of the collegial interaction that is essential for success in education and in public service. The building's site at the corner of South State Street and Hill Street makes it the first University of Michigan academic building encountered on the approach to the campus from the south.

The building is a welcoming landmark that, turning a friendly face to the town of Ann Arbor, greets the visitor in the spirit of the Michigan campus. The architectural character that distinguishes the University of Michigan from its peers is the work of Emil Lorch, Albert Kahn, and Pond & Pond, architects who created buildings unlike those at any other campus: the Michigan Union, the League, Hill Auditorium, Rackham, and the Hatcher Graduate Library. Weill Hall carries forward this inventive legacy with variegated decorative red brickwork highlighted by bright stone, its stacked and nested massing, and its proud tower.

The five floors of Weill Hall are organized to encourage the Ford School's collegial culture. The change in grade across the site allowed us to create what are effectively two ground floors along the path of travel through the building, with a lower gateway entrance at the base of the south tower, and with a more intimate entry one level above on a courtyard facing the campus to the north. A generously proportioned, naturally lit stair provides the building with a dramatic vertical spine connecting all levels. In our experience, no single architectural element does more to foster collegial interaction than such a stair. The two ground floors house the facilities that will generate the highest traffic: auditoriums and classrooms on the lower, at the south entry; and student services on the courtyard level at the north entry. The library, faculty offices, and seminar rooms fill the quieter upper floors. Throughout, alcoves of various shapes and sizes at every intersection of the corridors, together with the stair, provide the informal meeting spaces that are crucial to the interaction of faculty and students.

We are grateful for the enthusiastic collaboration of the faculty, staff, and students of the Ford School; for the leadership of the dean, Rebecca Blank; for the professional guidance of the University Architect's office; for the support of the Board of Regents; and for the generosity of the many donors, especially Joan and Sanford Weill.

The building was designed in association with Albert Kahn Associates.

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