CU.CPL

The previous retail space offered a unique location as an access point at the southern part of the campus, and Method saw the opportunity of creating an Interdisciplinary studio between Art, Architecture, and Engineering—the three schools at the Cooper Union—that would come together to focus on Civic Projects as a combined brief. Civic engagement derives in part from a ground floor storefront studio coupled with radical projection & transparency on how students are performing work.

A two-way dialogue is set up where the outside world can see students make, work, and present projects as they evolve over the course of a semester. Within the space, vertical rotating display boards act simultaneously as pinup space and virtual projector to communicate to the street. The digital boards can house announcements, freshly created student work, or broadcast student communications. A key driver to this pedagogical space is the overhead environmental surface made up of fiberglass fins and LED lighting, which provide a continuous and even illumination connecting the open ground floor studio under a single device that mimics the effects of the Foundation Building’s famous skylights.