Light-Filled Spaces at Grace Church High School

"Occupying a historic site on Cooper Square in downtown Manhattan is Grace Church High School, a new, progressive facility that offers light-filled, flexible spaces for teaching traditional core curriculum."

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"The second phase of the construction on Grace Church’s new high school, located in the former Hartz Mountain pet food factory and warehouse on Cooper Square, is set to begin. Composed of seven conjoined 19th-century row houses, the new design by Alspector Architecture maintains the mid-century constructed façade (designed in the 1960s when the houses were combined), but completely renovates the interior to maintain the openness, community, and flexibility required by the school’s mission. The 51,000-square-foot first phase includes the first and second floors and lower level. It also consists of a library, a study commons, and a cafeteria on the ground and lower level floors, in addition to administrative offices and classrooms..."

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Schoolhouse Architecture Gets Hip

"'I think it's democratic,' said architect Jacob Alspector. 'It's the space that's left over that's not owned or claimed by anyone that allows for possibilities.'"

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"New York, NY An independent high school that exemplifies the latest approaches to education has been opened by Grace Church School in spaces designed by Alspector Architecture. The $9 million, 51,000 s/f first phase of this three-phase project showcases a reinvented library, cafeteria, art studios, student commons, classrooms, science labs and administrative offices on the first and second floors and lower level..."

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"This first phase of renovations will add 60,000 square feet of learning space, with an eventual total of 100,000 square feet planned for the school.

'You won't feel cooped up, and they [students] will know where they are,' said the renovation's architect, Jacob Alspector, who incorporated numerous large skylights into the design. A series of glass paneling on the walls will enable students to see and feel the activity of Fourth Avenue..."

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Curbed reports in "Extreme Makovers" on the makeover of the former NYU Continuing Education digs.

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"The High School Division is located in a spacious and renovated landmark building at 46 Cooper Square in Greenwich Village, a short four-minute walk from Grace Church School at 86 Fourth Avenue..."

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"'It has been a gradual build up but, unquestionably, it is really important to have high-quality design,' says Jacob Alspector, RA, principal of New York-based Alspector Architecture. 'It has become the norm.” Indeed, he points out a time in the past when the reigning attitude was simply, 'Let’s get it done.' Not any more..."

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"Just two blocks north of Cooper Union, the excited voices of Grace Church School’s students fill their new full-size gymnasium. Deciding to build beneath the corner garden of James Renwick Jr.’s landmark gothic revival complex at Broadway and 10th Street, the school entrusted the design to Jacob Alspector (AR’72) and his firm, Alspector Architecture LLC...."

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Keeping the influential Philip Johnson's late 1960's design of Bobst Library in mind, Principal Architect Jacob Alspector of Alspector Architecture renovated the library to highlight and restore the best aspects Johnson's design by providing a visually attractive and stimulating space by efficiently using the space to not only create more room for students, but an greater area for collaborative study.

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"If Philip Johnson and Richard Foster designed the iconic Elmer Holmes Bobst Library to express New York University's academic vision, Jacob Alspector's redesign boasts technological advancement and architectural genius."

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“A new phase of renovation for the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library at New York University will transform floors four and five into a research commons for 21st century scholarship… The project is being supported in significant part with a gift of $10 million from the Elmer and Mamdouha Bobst Foundation. The gift, combined with a number of smaller gifts, contributions from the Friends of Bobst Library (a membership group), and a major investment from NYU, will enable Phase II to continue the transformation of the flagship library begun with the Phase I renovation of the main floor and two lower levels, completed in 2004. Phase II, as with Phase I, was designed and will be overseen by the architectural firm Alspector Architecture.”

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Finished just in time for the pre-finals rush, the renovation transformed the fourth and fifth floors into a "21st century research commons" designed to enhance productivity and enrich the research process. With nearly 400 additional seats, more natural light, and improved acoustics and furnishings, the renovated floors also promise to make study sessions much more comfortable.

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“A new phase renovation for the Elmer Homes Bobst Library will transform floors four and five into a research commons for 21st century scholarship with staff, technology, equipment and furnishings all selected and located to ensure that users can work with masimum productivity. Work, to begin in mid-May, will be completed by November 1, 2010.”

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Following the 2005 renovation of the lower four levels of Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, including the Brine Library Commons, Library administrators, professionals and staff began working with Alspector Architecture on a series of planning and conceptual design studies for the rest of the building.

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At a gala affair on December 16, the NYU community celebrated both the 30th anniversary of the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library and the eagerly anticipated debut of the new Mamdouha S. Bobst Gallery. Slated for public opening the following day, the gallery exhibition.

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The opening of the new Mamdouha S. Bobst Gallery on December 16 marked the official start of Phase One of Bobst Library’s scheduled refurbishment (floors A, B, 1, and 1M), along with preparation for Phase Two, which will cover floors 2 through 10.

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"This project renovated 75,000 square feet on four floors of the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, located in the heart of the campus at 70 Washington Square South. The new Brine Library Commons incompasses two floors of completely renovated student spaces on Lower Levels 1 and 2 to create..."

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"Bobst Library is open for business once again.
It never actually closed, of course, but in the year since two students fell to their deaths in the atrium, a dark cloud has loomed over an already shadowy building."

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“After a $15 million summer renovation, Bobst Library's underground levels have attracted flocks of students and rave reviews.”

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Last summer, Bobst Library underwent 75,000 square feet of renovations on the two lower levels and the first floor reference center. All of these floors are now open, though work will be continuing to install computers and complete some sections...

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The Utah Valley University Library was featured in the April 2009 issue of the American Library Association's (ALA) American Libraries magazine. UVU Library was one of 23 new and renovated academic, public and school facilities showcased in the publication's yearly Library Design Showcase.

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Utah Valley University Digital Learning Center, designed by Alspector Architecture, LLC was featured in the July/ August Issue of Green Business Quarterly highlighting the library's sustainable and high performance building design features.

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Framing Views
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Light and Enlightenment
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OREM — Shhhh ... here's a little secret: Gone are the days of dark, damp, musty libraries that are silent as a tomb. Instead, imagine a high-tech building full of light and warmth, full of special rooms for students to meet in or to just lounge in an overstuffed chair and read. And don't forget a small coffee shop and cafe.

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Six or seven years ago, before the roof was replaced, Mike Freeman had to rush to the library every time it rained. "If it was rainy or stormy, we'd be right down here," said Freeman, who is the director of the library at Utah Valley University. The roof of the library doesn't leak anymore, but Freeman is still excited to move to the new Utah Valley University library this summer.

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It's not quite a New Year's baby, but close enough. On December 22, 2006, construction crews poured the concrete for what will be Utah Valley University (UVU) new addition to the family—a $48 million, 190,000 square-foot library that will more than double the size of current building, as well as offer 40 group study rooms, an extended hours...

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Higher education administrators call it "mission creep," a term that describes the ambition of some colleges or universities to move up the institutional ladder.

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IT'S BEEN 10 MONTHS SINCE UTAH Valley University broke ground on the new Digital Learning Center, and the five-story building is coming along on time and within budget. "It's still on budget. It's still on schedule," said Jim Michaelis, UVU's vice president of facilities. "It's going very well."

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“After years of planning and politicking for a solution to its cramped library, UVSC broke ground on a new high-tech digital learning center Wednesday.
Students will be paired with technology in a 190,000-square-foot building that is central not only to plans to develop the north part of campus, but also to Utah Valley State College's aspirations of becoming a university.”

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UVU President William A. Sederburg has announced the hiring of a design/build team and lead architect for UVU’s new library, projected to be completed June 1, 2008. CRSA (Cooper, Roberts, Simonsen and Associates) and Layton Construction will help design and construct the building, with Jacob Alspector as lead architect.

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OREM — Utah Valley University administrators have picked a lead architect for the school's new digital library. Jacob Alspector was chosen. In addition, Cooper, Roberts, Simonsen and Associates and Layton Construction will also help design and construct the building.

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UVU President William A. Sederburg has recently announced the hiring of Cooper, Roberts, Simonsen and Associates and Layton Construction as the design/build team for the new Digital Learning Center, with acclaimed New York architect, Jacob Alspector, as lead architect.

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“The Library has been connected with UVSC’s transition to a university since the beginning; in fact, an updated and improved facility was one of the key points in the plan for university status. ‘A high-quality library is key to any great instititution,’ sand Micael Freeman, Director of UVSC’s library. The lead designer for the project is Jacob Alspector, an architect from New York, who has designed several award-winning projects, including the Mid-Manhattan and Science, Industry and Business Libraries of the NY Public Library.”

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OREM -- All signs point to the library. Utah Valley University's lobbying efforts at the legislative session that starts Jan. 16 will be focused on the Digital Learning Center, a long-hoped-for high-tech library to replace the current library that is too small for UVSC's 24,000 students.

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Jacob Alspector, the design architect for the library added his thoughts, "We wanted a unique place of light and enlightenment. We wanted to create different places to meet the moods of students, so that they can find a place to exchange thought.
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UVU Library Reassessment for Accreditation
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"The Kind of Building You Don't Get to Build anymore..."
An interview with the architects conducted in 1997 during the planning stages of The Graduate Center's then new campus.

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By Deborah Quilter

"Jacob Alspector... defined transparency as the experience of being so overwhelmed by the presence of a building you can't remember details of it. Physical reality disappears and you are left with an emotional experience, transported from the ennui of daily reality to a timeless realm through the impact of the architectural space working on you mind, emotions and senses at once."

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Architecture is like life: a matter of trade-offs. Right now the best trade-off in New York is at the corner of 89th Street and Fifth Avenue, where the renovation and expansion of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has left this structure -- one of the greatest buildings of the 20th century -- at once compromised and improved.

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The facade revisions will be expensive, said Jacob Alspector, senior associate at Gwathmey Siegel & Associates, Mr. Gwathmey's firm.
"They involve renovating the wall of an existing building," he said. But he would not comment on the actual cost. Asked about this, Mr. Krens said, "I don't know the details, and I don't think it's a major point here."

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In 1958, Frank Lloyd Wright designed a curved stainless-steel serving counter for the cafe at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan. But it wasn't built until last year. Two and a half weeks ago, the gleaming 35-foot-long arc, whose base is concave, was installed as one of the final touches in the museum's total renovation.

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The reopening of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has been postponed until mid-May, its deputy director, Michael Govan, said last week.

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The New York City Board of Standards and Appeals has voted to reopen public hearings on the proposed expansion of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, in order to consider a revised plan to enlarge the museum building.

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Instead of having an awkward apartment house wall as its backdrop, Wright's Guggenheim now stands before a handsome facade of what the architects, Gwathmey, Siegel and their associate, Jacob Alspector, call a ''tartan grid'' of limestone.

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Building information through Architectour

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On Monday, April 19th ARLIS members gathered in the lower auditorium of the New York Public Library. Old cut stone walls reminders of the library distant past as the Croton Reservoir were the perfect prelude to the topic of modernizing public library spaces. Speakers Brian Regan, Angela Giral and Jacob Alspector presented on the challenges encountered...

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There are no Corinthian columns, no ornate coffered ceilings, and the grand staircase is of stainless steel and terrazzo rather than marble. No lions guard the door. But the new Science, Industry and Business Library of the New York Public Library, which is to be dedicated this morning at Madison Avenue and 34th Street, is every bit as grand, in its way, as the library's great main building at Fifth Avenue and 42d Street.

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First it was the International Design Center, now it is the American Museum of the Moving Image. The architects Charles Gwathmey and Robert Siegel seem to have cornered the market in making old industrial structures in Queens into significant new public buildings.

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A library is one of the most challenging and rewarding building types what we consider to be the very heart of education, the repository of thought. FLITE has proven itself to be an example of the great tradition of academic libraries that are literal and figurative centers of university life a cathedral of knowledge.

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Big Rapids, Mich.
Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects LLC
Architectural Record

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222 Sycamore Street
Columbus, Indiana

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Pence Street
Columbus, Indiana

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Associate Professor Jacob Alspector was a featured alumnus in an interview published in the October issue of the Cooper Union Alumni Association’s online newsletter.

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In Alan Brake's Editorial piece, Cooper Union alum, former Trustee and former President of the Alumni Association, Jacob Alspector speaks out about the school's culture and its mission of merit-based free education for all.

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All jurors are based in New York City (standing, left to right): Leslie Gill, educated at New York’s Copper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, founded her own practice, Leslie Gill Architect, in 1995.

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“Why does my building project need an interior designer?” Come to this LAMA-BES program and you will find out why.

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