The two buildings, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, face each other across a one-acre landscaped area known as the square, which has been designed by James Corner Field Operations as the largest public park on any of Columbia’s campuses. Dubbed Henry R. Kravis Hall and David Geffen Hall, the buildings double the space of the school while integrating offices, flexible learning spaces, study rooms, and other facilities distributed, before, across buildings on campus and rented offices elsewhere on the upper west side.
Additionally, from construction to the operation of the completed buildings, the School’s future home is designed to have minimal impact on the environment. The Manhattanville campus is the first neighborhood development in New York City to earn the prestigious LEED-ND Platinum designation from the US Green Building Council.
Columbia Business School by DS+R. Photograph by Iwan Baan.
Project description by Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Columbia Business School’s new home spans approximately 45,708 square meter across two buildings that reflect the fast-paced, high-tech, and highly social character of business in the 21st century. The two new facilities, Henry R. Kravis Hall and David Geffen Hall, double the School’s current square footage, creating multifunctional spaces that foster a sense of community—spaces where students, faculty, alumni, and practitioners can gather to exchange ideas. The design of both buildings recognizes that creativity, innovation, and communication—skills often nurtured in informal environments—are as crucial to business school pedagogy as the traditional, quantitative skills taught in a classroom.
The building organization shuffles alternating floors of faculty offices with student learning spaces in the eleven-story Henry R. Kravis Hall and floors for administrative offices and learning spaces in the eight-story David Geffen Hall. The resultant layer-cake design is expressed in each building’s façade with systems tailored to the interior program. The school’s internal spaces are organized around intersecting networks of circulation and collaborative learning environments that extend up vertically through each building, linking spaces of teaching, socializing, and studying, to create a continuous space of learning and interaction that remains vibrant 24 hours a day.
Engagement with the city and surrounding West Harlem community is a fundamental aspect of the new Columbia Business School’s design. Henry R. Kravis Hall offers 360degrees of exposure and proximity to the Hudson River. At the same time, David Geffen Hall establishes a strong connection to the urban fabric of the neighborhood and the mid-block pedestrian axis of the Manhattanville master plan. Every classroom provides a view of the city and landscape. The two buildings also welcome in the community, including a new dedicated space on the second floor of David Geffen Hall for the Columbia-Harlem Small Business Development Center that will build on the school’s ten-year history of supporting local entrepreneurs. A 40,000 square-foot public park and new retail spaces—including a café featuring local products—also connect Columbia Business School more closely with the surrounding neighborhood.
