FAQ

• The University Center is the hub of the New School campus: a 16-story, approximately 375,000-square-foot building located at the intersection of 14th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
• The building has 230,000 square feet of academic space on the first seven floors and 135,000 square feet for a 600-bed dormitory on the remaining nine floors, providing space for all aspects of campus life.
• There is an additional 10,000 gross square feet of retail space on the first floor and below street level along 14th Street.
• The academic space includes 50,000 square feet of design studios, interdisciplinary classrooms, and laboratories that are easily adaptable to encourage use by a mix of different disciplines.
• It includes an 800-seat auditorium, featuring a reconfigurable stage (with 18 electric lifts) that can be set up for dance and musical performances or as a fashion runway; a large cafeteria; a two-story library; a 2,200-square-foot faculty resource center; three student lounges; and a lobby and café on two levels, suitable for performances.
• The building includes numerous spaces for informal interaction, such as the three central staircases that weave their way through the building. The University Center is a hive of activity, visible from the street through large glass windows.
• The center meets the USGBC's LEED Gold standard, making it one of the greenest academic buildings in the country, and in New York in particular.
• The architect of the University Center was Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The developer was The Durst Organization and the construction manager was Tishman Construction Corporation.

In the first decade of the 21st century, The New School has transformed itself into a leading degree-granting university with a focus on interdisciplinary programs. Our model of education requires a state-of-the-art space for all students. The University Center provides a dynamic new urban focal point for interdisciplinary learning, student life, and public programming and performance.

The University Center residences opened in fall 2013. The academic, public, and performance spaces opened in January 2014.

The University Center was designed by award-winning Skidmore, Owings and Merrill architect Roger Duffy, FAIA, whose work includes major buildings at Brown University, Deerfield Academy, and David Ben Gurion International Airport.

The University Center is one of Manhattan's most sustainable skyscrapers, with a projected LEED Gold Rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. To learn more about the building's green features, visit the University Center Sustainability page.

The seventh-floor garden was designed by internationally renowned landscape architecture firm Mathews Nielsen.

Designed to foster community inside and outside the building, the University Center's staircases are one of the building's most novel elements. Each exposed staircase sits atop a hidden fire staircase, allowing two kinds of movement through the building: The exposed stairs encourage chance meetings, while the hidden ones provide direct floor-to-floor access. Learn more at the Architect's Newspaper.