Rutgers picks five firms for its College project

Real Estate Weekly, Dec 21, 2005

Rutgers University announced five finalists in the competition to redesign its College Avenue campus.

Over the next three months, the five firms--stretching from Paris to Mexico City--will lead teams of architects, landscape designers and urban planners that will solicit ideas from members of the Rutgers community as they create design concepts for the College Avenue campus.

The five finalists include the following firms:

Beyer Blinder Belle Architects and Planners LLP in a joint venture with Ateliers Jean Nouvel. BBB has prepared comprehensive long-term campus plans for Columbia University, SUNY Stony Brook and Indiana University.

Nouvel's projects include the design of the Arab World Institute in Paris and the Lucerne Cultural and Congress Center.

Eisenman Architects. The firm's projects include the Wexner Center for the Visual Arts and Fine Arts Library at Ohio State University and the Aronoff Center for Design and Art at the University of Cincinnati.

Morphosis--Thom Mayne. This firm has worked on several major projects, including the Caltrans District 7 headquarters in Los Angeles, graduate student housing at the University of Toronto, the Student Recreation Center at the University of Cincinnati, a new academic building for The Cooper Union in New York and the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Caltech.

Antoine Predock Architect PC. Predock's projects include the design of the Ohio State University Recreation and Physical Activity Center, Stanford's Center for Integrated Systems and Rice's Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology. Another team member, the Olin Partnership, created development plans for the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ten Arquitectos. The firm's most recognized projects include the Queens Master Plan in Long Island City, N.Y. and the National School of Theater in Mexico City. Another project, designing a stainless steel screen to mask a parking structure on the southern edge of Princeton University, received the gold medal at the AIA/New Jersey Design Awards in 2002.

The competition will be judged by a panel that will include members of the Rutgers community, as well as architecture, landscape design and urban planning professionals. The winning team will have the opportunity to create the landscape for the greening of the campus and to design a new, signature academic building.

"The five architecture and design teams competing for this honor feature many of the finest minds in their field," said Rutgers University president Richard L. McCormick said. "Working together with a wide array of representatives from the Rutgers community, we will transform the College Avenue campus into an inspiring academic environment that is worthy of our great state and this outstanding university."

Each finalist will receive a $50,000 stipend, funded through the Rutgers University Foundation, to prepare conceptual designs for the College Avenue campus.