Marcelo Velez Participates in Panel Discussion on the Architectural Design of Columbia’s New Manhattanville Buildings

April 05, 2019

Marcelo Velez, vice president of the Manhattanville Development Group, was a featured panelist discussing the facades of the three new buildings at Columbia’s Manhattanville campus at the Facades+ New York conference hosted by the Architect’s Newspaper on April 4. 

Joining Velez on the panel were Antoine Chaaya, partner/director at Renzo Piano Building Workshop, the architectural firm that designed the three new buildings at Columbia’s Manhattanville campus, and Joseph Tizn, project director at Josef Gartner, Permasteelisa Group, the contractor that installed the architectural envelopes for the Lenfest Center for the Arts and The Forum.

During the event, Velez explained how the façade of each new building at the Manhattanville campus was designed to reflect specific functional and symbolic roles.  As demonstrated in the Jerome L. Greene Science Center, the double-skin aluminum and glass façade system serves a scholarly purpose, providing temperature control and noise reduction that is necessary to conduct research.  In addition, the ground floor is transparent, like all new buildings at the Manhattanville campus, designed to welcome the community into the building.

Juergen Riehm, founding principal at 1100 Architects and co-chair of the conference, was the moderator of the panel.