SGS completed two administrative office suites for Columbia University’s School of Engineering & Applied Sciences (SEAS), both located in the Interchurch Center near Columbia’s main campus. The two projects include private offices, open workstation areas, meeting rooms and support spaces. Our design improves these offices’ layouts and acoustic privacy as well as upgrading their finishes, lighting and furniture to meet current university design requirements. Taking advantage of the large windows and abundant natural light, the materials, details and selection of furniture all work in harmony to create a variety of workspaces that meet the department’s current and future needs.

Columbia University SEAS Offices

SGS was proud to be selected by the Pulitzer Prize organization to renovate its offices, located at Columbia University. The goal of the project was to improve the functionality of the space, affording greater collaboration and improving the quality of the work environment, while also bringing forward the mission and identity of the Pulitzer organization. Working closely with Pulitzer leadership and staff, we developed a design approach to declutter the office and improve its appearance with custom work stations and book storage, new lighting and finishes, display and graphics.

Pulitzer Prize Office

In 2018, as part of its ongoing efforts to provide accessibility enhancements across the campus, Columbia University asked SGS to reconfigure the entryway to Havemeyer Hall, an historic McKim, Mead and White building that is home to its chemistry department, to improve student access and to make the building ADA compliant. SGS’s design for a new exterior ramp and entry door, altering the façade and interior lobby and office spaces, preserved the original features and historic details notable in this elegant 1897 building while adapting its design to provide functional, secure and dignified wheelchair access. The Havemeyer Hall ramp and entry was planned not only to address this particular structure but also as a prototype for similar entry points campus-wide.

Havemeyer Hall Entrance Redesign

In 2018 SGS was invited to design the renovation of an existing lab and support spaces in the Sherman Fairchild building to provide a completely new facility for molecular biology, microscopy and chemistry research. The project was developed around the specific needs and functional requirements of a new professor in the Department of Biology, and necessitated a complete renovation of the lab, along with an ancillary support space in an adjacent lab building and an upgrade to the research team’s office area. The project includes all new bench space, equipment, distribution of lab services and two fume hoods. The program also includes a laser facility that can be subdivided into four separate zones, each of which operates independently. The project was completed in 2019 and has been in active use since that time by the professor and his team.

Columbia University Biochemistry Lab

In 2018 the Arts and Science Chemistry Department at Columbia University selected SGS to fully renovate a lab on the fourth floor of Havemeyer Hall, a national landmark designed by McKim Meade and White that is used as a teaching and research facility. The project was undertaken to accommodate a recent recruit to the university, with the goal of providing dedicated research space and returning the 2,800 sf lab to its highest and best use. The design team closely analyzed the existing conditions and identified a way to capture additional space that was located outside the existing lab area, enabling the department to capitalize on this resource to benefit the project. The reconfiguration provided more storage and support space and improved the layout and design of the main research lab. The program includes a BSL2 tissue culture room, cold rooms, ample bench space for centrifuges, microscopes and other equipment, and multiple fume hoods. It also includes a “future hires” space, which was conceived of as a separate lab but one that, if necessary, could also function as an annex to the main lab space.

Columbia University Chemistry Lab

Alongside the numerous research labs, offices and student spaces that SGS has designed for Columbia University, the Lenfest Café was another opportunity to upgrade an existing facility into an attractive and more functional asset for the University. Completed in just a few months, the project consisted of all new systems and furnishings, and an improved layout to bring a fresh, contemporary feel to this much used food service outlet in the heart of the Columbia Law School. An adjacent dining and assembly space was also upgraded with new finishes and furniture.

Columbia University Lenfest Cafe

In late 2016 SGS was asked to provide a series of improvements and renovations in Lerner Hall, the main student building on campus, to better serve the student body. A series of sequential moves in a multi-phased project enabled the university to provide a properly sized and located computer lab, two executive conference rooms and support spaces, and two centrally located lounge spaces with views and visual connections to the entire building. The project also included the replacement of a large operable wall separating the ground floor auditorium space from the upper balcony theater seating, to address longstanding acoustic performance issues. The project was completed in 2018 and has proven popular with students and with the building’s administration.

Lerner Hall Student Center

 was outgrowing their Red Hook office and needed a dedicated warehouse to store their growing tool and salvaged parts collection, as well as a classroom space to lead their popular workplace development courses. SGS designed a multi-functional office space in Gowanus that serves their mission dedicated to the preservation of affordable housing for low-income residents of New York City. The design makes the most of the limited budget by incorporating its open MEP systems and simple construction details such as exposed fasteners and materials edges as visual lessons for the non-profit's staff and their construction workforce trainees. SGS also created a custom mural, painted by our designers, that features stylized maps of the five boroughs on a tackboard wall, so that RTNYC's team can track their projects across the city with pins.

Rebuilding Together NYC Offices

SGS has worked regularly for the NYC School Construction Authority, completing renovations of several libraries and bringing them up to contemporary use as multi-function digital media centers.

School Construction Authority Libraries

SGS was selected to design the new pro-bono legal clinic within the Columbia Law School, a law office where students meet with real clients under the supervision of faculty. The space allocated for the project included a large windowless mechanical room and an interior office space on the floor below. Our design connects these spaces through a new interior staircase, strategically positioned under an existing roof hatch that became a dramatic skylight. The law clinic is animated by the introduction of natural light throughout the suite and the use of a bold material palette. Its layout flexibly supports a wide range of activities, and its program includes a reception area, booths for individual or small group work, a large meeting room, a computer lab, offices, and built-in spaces for informal interaction.

Columbia University Law Clinic

SGS has worked regularly for the NYC School Construction Authority, designing several teaching lab classrooms and converting regular classroom space into chemistry labs with their complex needs for ventilation and plumbing.

School Construction Authority Laboratories

SGS enlivened two spaces for a NYC based textile company, their Queens headquarters and a Manhattan showroom. Selective programmatic elements, including the use of individual bright colors and an inserted grid of large-scale pendant lights, lend scale and warmth to the originally-industrial and mostly windowless Queens warehouse, transforming it into a bright and dynamic workspace. For the company’s Manhattan showroom, SGS devised a subtle backdrop for the display of textiles visually accented by carefully chosen components, such as brightly colored storage walls. A sculptural wall provides niched display space at the entrance and screens service areas from the otherwise open floor plan.

Textile Office and Gallery

For a tutoring firm with a restricted budget in need of a recognizable design for its dual-purpose headquarters, SGS used translucent materials and sliding walls with bright red accents. Free-standing, cylindrical pods provide space for individual coaching sessions allowing for simultaneous use with the firm’s open office facilities.

Manhattan GMAT

In the windowless basement of a New York University dormitory building, SGS created a vibrant radio station that houses office space, broadcast booths, a common work area and high density storage system for music. The design of the space is enlivened by tackable walls panels that are striated with colorful strips of wood, colorful storage cabinets and light fixtures which hang between custom perforated wood ceiling panels.

WNYU Radio Station

SGS was able to create a suite of eight social services offices in the space of a single former classroom for this charter school which serves a large number of children with special needs. While half of the offices are without natural light, colorful slices of translucent polycarbonate panels were inserted into new partial height walls which create an interplay of color and light, enlivening the space.

Opportunity Charter School

In 2020, Columbia University asked SGS to create a new physics laboratory in the cellar level of the historic Pupin Hall in order to expand the research facilities specifically designed for a professor studying condensed matter and atomic, molecular and optical physics. After an extensive feasibility study to confirm the best approach, several underutilized support spaces were combined to create a new, high-performing lab, which includes three scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) chambers and ancillary spaces. The ten-foot deep STM chambers required subsurface imaging to locate bedrock below the building and were constructed using a unique concrete wall design free of any steel reinforcing that would interfere with the scanning technology used in these locations. These environmentally isolated and sound-proofed chambers are clustered near supporting areas for equipment and storage, as well as lab space for analysis and computation. The project is now complete and fully operational.

Columbia University Physics Lab

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