Cornell University Milstein Hall

Cornell University
Ithaca, NY

SCAPE's 26,000 square foot green roof for Cornell University’s Milstein Hall opened to critical acclaim in the Fall of 2011. Planted in a dynamic pattern of red and green and designed to change over time, this massive landscape-on-structure visually integrates the building with the spectacular colors of the surrounding forest canopy As subconsultant to OMA Rotterdam and executive architect Kendall Heaton, our landscape architectural scope also included a plaza at the base of the new building, an interior courtyard and connections back into the campus fabric. Over the course of the collaboration, SCAPE not only designed the plantings, site and surrounding landscape, but also took over design of the building’s roof slope and drainage system, arriving at a solution that saved the project a great deal of money and met the architect’s desire to eliminate the need for a gutter system. Milstein Hall now provides versatile pedagogical space for the interdisciplinary departments of Arts, Architecture and Planning at Cornell, while environmentally complementary plantings literally unite the modern structure with the historic campus, also extending metaphorically toward the wider regional ecology.

Credits:
OMA Rotterdam, Kendall Heaton, TG Miller