The natural environment of the Cornell campus is startling,' says Thom Mayne, of Morphosis, about the gorge-riven and forested terrain of the 149-year-old university in Ithaca, New York. So is his recently completed Bill & Melinda Gates Hall. The 101,500-square-foot structure perches like a giant metal bird on a sloping site near the historic center of the Ivy League institution. With this facility for the combined departments of the Faculty of Computing and Information Science, the architects placed a rectilinear volume on the southwest corner of the narrow 60,000-square-foot site, then mounted feathery stainless-steel perforated panels on its long north and south elevations and across the upper west facade. On this short end facing the street, Morphosis carved out the first two floors, creating a deep, partially cantilevered overhang for an entry plaza slightly elevated above grade. The sheltering arced soffit is clad in orange metal, giving it a sunlike vibrancy that is 'so helpful in fighting depression in the winter's dark, gray, snowy days,' says project principal Ung-Joo Scott Lee, who should know: he was once a student on this northern campus.
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