Cornell North Quad

Cornell University
Ithaca, NY

The North Quad at Cornell University, at the boundary between the historic Arts Quad and the scenic Fall Creek Gorge, previously housed trailers and a parking lot, later becoming the site of three major construction projects: Milstein Hall (OMA), the Johnson Museum addition (Pei Cobb Freed), and a new subsurface parking garage (Desman). SCAPE transformed the area and University Avenue, in particular, from a back-of-house condition into a new gateway for the campus. We redesigned the seam between the quad and the gorge to knit together the three new buildings with the existing quad, and to integrate site sustainability and stormwater management into a coherent overall design concept for the site. SCAPE worked closely with all three architecture teams, the City of Ithaca, and the University to realize a dynamic and coherent landscape vision.