Memorial Sloan-Kettering - Mortimer B Zuckerman Research Building - by S.O.M.

[Edward]

Text and pictures from SOM website
http://www.som.com/

Project Mission

The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Research Building incorporates basic science laboratories, dry laboratories, vivarium, and education center. Designed in collaboration with Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership, the building is to be completed in 2006. This new research facility is intended to create an inspiring and interactive environment for innovative cancer research, as well as create a distinct civic identity for Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Building Type, Program, Location

The proposed research tower is located on the hospital's main campus in New York City between York Avenue and First Avenue and Sixty Seventh and Sixty Ninth Streets. The new 684,000 gsf facility incorporates three major programmatic elements: Research Laboratories, including, wet labs, lab support, offices, dry labs, and interaction spaces; Vivarium, consisting of animal research, imaging and surgery facilities; and Public Functions, including lobby, conference center and auditorium.

Client's Goals

-Promote the institutional mission of cutting edge cancer research and treatment

-Provide a supportive and creative environment for researchers and staff

-Reinforce MSKCC's role within the community

-Express a distinct image for MSKCC

-Embody the ideal of research as the basis for healing patient care, innovative treatment and the prevention and cure of cancer

Issues and Constraints

Located on a dense, midlock urban site, the new building must create efficient and flexible research space, while responding to stringent urban design, zoning and phasing constraints. *Issues include:

-Complex phasing

-Minimized construction disruption and schedule

-Community concerns

-Relationship to a diverse context

Design Approach

The Design consolidates all research space into a compact phase I Tower, minimizing construction duration and disruption. Phase II includes a seven story education and dry laboratory pavilion. Programmatic functions are organized into three clear architectural components: a laboratory bar with linear equipment room and support, a public circulation spine and an office/interaction cluster.

This approach:

-Maximizes efficiency and flexibility

-Maximizes views and natural light

-Creates clear functional zoning and systems integration

-Allows for future expansion

[Edward]

February 2002 Press Release

Rezoning & Research Building Approved


Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center has received land-use approvals to construct a new laboratory research building and to plan for the long-term future of its hospital complex. The New York City Council voted unanimously to approve the Memorial Sloan-Kettering's applications in the closing days of 2001, ending a year-long public review process.

“The rezoning will allow Memorial Sloan-Kettering to develop much-needed laboratory space; but the greatest benefit of the zoning change may be felt in the decades ahead, since MSKCC will have the ability to plan for the replacement of Memorial Hospital, now 28 years old,” said Douglas A. Warner III, Chairman of the Boards of Overseers and Managers.

Construction of the laboratory building could begin as early as this spring, giving Memorial Sloan-Kettering its first new research building since the Rockefeller Research Laboratories Building opened in 1989. Final designs for the research building are being developed by the architectural team of Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) and Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership, a firm with special expertise in laboratory design.

“The new building will provide us with the space and the tools we need to expand our faculty and to capitalize on exciting opportunities in cancer research,” said Harold Varmus, Memorial Sloan-Kettering President. Dr. Varmus sought an assessment of the institution's research program shortly after he arrived from the National Institutes of Health in January 2000. That assessment identified programmatic needs in the areas of experimental pathology, cancer genetics, and experimental therapeutics, among others.

The City Council vote followed extensive public hearings on the application and included detailed review by the City Planning Commission. The site for the research building on East 68th Street between First and York Avenues received a partial rezoning, allowing for more space than would have otherwise been permitted. In addition, a full rezoning was approved for the main block where Memorial Hospital and related buildings are located. This decision is significant because construction of the new surgical platform -- which began in 2001 -- exhausted space available under the former R-8 zoning.

“This is, I think, one of the most important actions that this commission ... has taken during my tenure,” said Joseph B. Rose, Chairman of the Planning Commission during the Guiliani administration, in casting his vote. “I think it is a very important investment towards the city’s future.”

The first phase of the construction will consist of a 420-foot-tall building with 16 floors of laboratories in the lot adjacent to St. Catherine of Siena Church. Construction of the second phase -- a seven-story building with less-specialized laboratories -- will commence once researchers in the present Kettering Laboratory are relocated and that structure is demolished. Construction is expected to take six years, according to Edward J. Mahoney, Vice President, Facilities Management.

“The site presents many complexities,” said Mustafa Abadan, design architect for SOM, noting that the first phase will include a rectory for St. Catherine’s Church and will cantilever over the present Kettering Laboratory. “The best solution is an L-shaped laboratory building oriented in a north-south direction with a low-rise structure completing the East 68th Street frontage.”

The building’s exterior will be predominately a mix of glass and masonry, with a masonry base at the lower levels to integrate the design into the surrounding neighborhood. Glass in the laboratory block will be treated with a special silk-screen process -- called fritting -- that will control light that enters the building and the amount it emits. Combined with integrated sun-shading devices in the office areas, this will create an energy-efficient structure that can be operated cost-effectively.

The design, which incorporates ideas from Memorial Sloan-Kettering scientists, emphasizes flexibility and fosters interaction among researchers in different disciplines. Each floor will consist of 18 laboratory modules that will be assigned to investigators based on program size. Parallel equipment and procedure rooms on the same north-south axis will support the laboratories. Glass-enclosed internal staircases will be linked to common areas and offices will connect individual floors. An auditorium and meeting rooms will be part of the second phase of construction, providing the campus with new common amenities.

[Zoe]

Is this building going to happen? *I thought the NIMBY's were able to stop this project. *Anyone have any more information about its status?

[Derek2k3]

I know they have finished demolition and construction might have started already


Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
1275 York Avenue & East 67th Street
16 stories 420ft
Skidmore Owings & Merrill/Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership
Under Construction Spring 2003-2006

[dbhstockton]

It should be a nice addition to the neighborhood. *Good SOM.

[Kris]

I hope the contrast will shock the neighbors.

[Evan]

What exactly did the NIMBY's oppose about this project??? *If anything, I would think that they would support a building dedicated to cancer research and treatment.

[TLOZ Link5]

Maybe none of them have cancer, or maybe they think that their property values will decline from chemotherapy emanations...

Good thing the NIMBYs were overidden.

[DominicanoNYC]

Hmmm... I really like the output of this building. It's very effecient. Nearly as energy efficient as that parcially solar powered building further downtown. It's vey space efficent too. One of the most space effecient buildings I've ever heard of.

[Kris]

April 3, 2004

Cancer Center Can Continue With High-Rise

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

Work on Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's $500 million high-rise research center can proceed, a judge has ruled, as he turned aside the objections of neighbors who say the project violates the city's zoning rules.

Sloan-Kettering has argued that the 23-story tower, on 68th Street between First and York Avenues on the Upper East Side, is essential to its remaining a leader in cancer research. Construction began last fall, but was threatened by a lawsuit filed by a group of neighborhood residents, who complained that the building would add to traffic congestion and cast their homes into shadows.

The block is zoned as primarily residential, but city zoning rules make an exception in such an area for a "hospital-related facility." Sloan-Kettering argued that its plan came under that exception, and the City Planning Commission and the city's Board of Standards and Appeals agreed last year.

The neighbors sued the city, contending that the research tower did not qualify because its work was too far removed from the care of patients at the hospital, across the street.

Those critics "define 'hospital' in archaic and limited terms," Acting Justice Michael D. Stallman ruled in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. "A modern teaching hospital engages in a wide range of research, testing and study, both of their own patients and their biological material, and that of others."

The decision was dated March 12; people on both sides of the case first learned of it yesterday.

This was the first court ruling to test what qualifies, under city zoning rules, as hospital-related, said Gabriel Taussig, chief of the administrative law division in the city's Law Department.

As city hospitals carry out their building plans, he said, "that's likely to become more of an issue."

One plaintiff, Toni Vastinar, who lives on First Avenue between 68th and 69th Streets, said that the high-rise would block his view and sunlight to his home, and that he had some concerns about chemicals used in the laboratories. "The bottom line is they're putting up a commercial building in a residential area," he said.

The main part of the building, to be completed in 2006, will be 420 feet tall. That is unusually high for 23 stories, and opponents have insisted that they consider it a 42-story building. A second, lower phase of the project next door is slated for completion in 2008.

To make way for the project, the hospital will tear down its existing, much smaller research building and the rectory for the neighboring St. Catherine of Siena Roman Catholic Church. A hospital spokeswoman said that as part of the deal with the church, the research tower would include apartments for some of the priests.

The spokeswoman, Chris Hickey, said the tower would be Sloan-Kettering's biggest construction project in more than two decades.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[tmg]

I just spotted this from the Queensboro Bridge. It's progressing nicely!

[finnman69]

It should be a nice addition to the neighborhood. *Good SOM.

Barf. The designers were smoking crack when the came up with this fritted checkerboard curtain wall!

And this is after the new WTC 7 curtainwall which is the best i have ever seen. SOM get some consistency for god's sake.

[Derek2k3]

Actually this was proposed before the New 7WTC. Have you seen the facade in person?

[tmg]

The New York Times
A $100 Million Gift to Sloan-Kettering
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Published: May 10, 2006

Mortimer B. Zuckerman has pledged $100 million to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the largest donation in the hospital's history and one of the largest ever given to an American medical center.

Sloan-Kettering will name its new research center on the Upper East Side for Mr. Zuckerman, the real estate developer and owner of The Daily News and U.S. News & World Report. The gift will be announced today.

Mr. Zuckerman, 68, said that he became involved in cancer treatment and research decades ago, when "a lot of people very close to me in a very short period had cancer," and that other cases since then among family members and friends have stoked that interest. He has sat on Sloan-Kettering's board for 15 years, and is a former president of the board of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, which has specialized in children's cancers.

"I found it extraordinarily difficult at Dana-Farber to go through the wards, because it was so hard to see these children," Mr. Zuckerman said in an interview, his voice breaking with emotion.

Large donations to schools and hospitals are often marked for specific purposes — stem cell research, for instance, or student scholarships, but Mr. Zuckerman's is unrestricted. Dr. Harold Varmus, the president of Sloan-Kettering, said that the gift, though not given specifically for the construction of the research center, would be particularly useful, as many philanthropists "don't like to give for bricks and mortar."

The $503 million research center will contain almost 700,000 square feet of space, and will double the physical space devoted to research at Sloan-Kettering, hospital officials said. Dr. Varmus said jokingly that while the construction is already well under way, Mr. Zuckerman's gift, to be paid over 10 years, "ensures that we can actually pay for it."

The first phase of construction, a 23-story tower on East 68th Street between First and York Avenues, across the street from Sloan-Kettering's 514-bed hospital, will consist mostly of research laboratories. It is nearing completion, and the first group of scientists will move in next month. Plans call for a second, smaller building with offices, classrooms and auditoriums, to be built next door, where the old Kettering building now stands.

The previous largest gift to Sloan-Kettering was $50 million from an anonymous donor, officials said.

Groups that track charitable giving have recorded only a small number of donations of $100 million or more to medical institutions in the United States — perhaps fewer than 20. Sanford I. Weill, the chief executive of Citigroup, has twice given $100 million to Cornell University's medical school, which was renamed for him.

Most recipients of such large gifts are major universities with large, all-purpose medical schools and multibillion-dollar endowments.

Sloan-Kettering, an independent institution without a university affiliation, is regarded as one of the world's premier sites for treating and researching cancer, and it has been enormously successful at raising money. The center has an endowment approaching $2 billion, second only to Shriners Hospital for Children in Tampa, Fla., among American medical centers, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy. But that is still far less than the endowments of the nation's major universities.

Mr. Zuckerman has given to many causes, notably to Jewish groups and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and he has given about $3 million over the years to Sloan-Kettering before this gift. Some of his donations have been as big as $10 million or more, but "nothing close to this," he said. "It's a bit of a gulp, I have to tell you."

Mr. Zuckerman, who grew up in a family of modest means in Montreal, has built a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at $1.9 billion. He said, "My sister, who's a shrink, said to me, 'Your life is better than your fantasies.' "

He went to law school and business school, and embarked on a real estate career at the Boston firm Cabot, Cabot & Forbes. In 1970, he and a colleague there, Edward H. Linde, broke away and formed Boston Properties, which has become a major owner and developer of real estate in Boston, New York, Washington and San Francisco.

He established a reputation as a shrewd and self-promoting deal maker, willing to engage in long and public clashes with government officials, as he did over the proposed redevelopment of the Coliseum site on Columbus Circle, a project that fell through in the early 1990's. Mr. Zuckerman has also taught at Harvard and Yale and has cultivated ties to politicians and publishers.

Eager to establish his voice in public affairs in the 1980's, Mr. Zuckerman bought The Atlantic Monthly, which he sold in 1999, and U.S. News & World Report, where he holds the titles of publisher and editor in chief. In 1993, he bought The Daily News.

"New York is a city that inspires philanthropy," he said about his latest gift. "There are more people who support more eleemosynary institutions than any other place by far. It's one of the reasons I love this city."

[Peteynyc1]

Is there a thread or does anyone have a rendering for the future Cancer research center going up on 2nd ave between 66th and 65th? This was the site of the beloved Beacon Theatre which will be missed.