Take a closer look at the Joyce F. Brown
Academic Building
By Jonathan Vatner and Alex Joseph
Rising majestically over 28th Street, the Joyce F. Brown Academic Building, named for FIT’s outgoing president, is the college’s first in nearly half a century. For decades, the campus’ architecture presented a fortresslike Brutalist cement façade to the city. The new golden, glass-fronted structure, designed by SHoP Architects, offers fresh access to FIT and transforms a once sleepy neighborhood corridor into a destination.
In contrast to the rest of FIT’s architecture, which is dominated by Brutalist concrete, the new building’s glass façade intrigues passersby. “This idea of transparency became the key,” Sharples says. The glass is punctuated with anodized aluminum “fins” that rhyme with the Feldman exterior. When SHoP won the NEA competition to design the building in 2003, the firm was relatively unknown. “FIT and Mitchell Park in Greenport, Long Island, were two significant projects because we won them so early in our career,” Sharples says. “They really impacted our approach to process and design.”
Photo by Chris Payne.
“This building is an investment in the future,” Dr. Brown said at the ceremony to open the building on October 23. “I knew that as a public college, our public students deserved a place to belong. A place that was inspiring and conducive to learning. A place that would make them want to be inside and to learn how to apply their talents in order to fuel the industries and to expand the creativity of New York.”
Architecture buffs love the Marvin Feldman Center, FIT’s first building, named for the college’s fourth president. “It’s a building you dream about,” Sharples says. Its origami-like exterior panels are crafted from Alcoa aluminum—material said to have been originally intended for WWII aircraft—and finished in “Architectural Brown, 4020,” a hue developed specifically for the building. According to Alcoa promotional materials, the color was designed to “capture the feeling of forward thinking.”
The façade greets students as they ride the grand escalator, and it oversees the fifth-floor student commons like a friendly giant. In the morning light, the metal explodes with color.
Photo by Chris Payne.
The new 10-story edifice comprises 24 smart classrooms, the 138-seat Bob Fisch Presentation Hall, a sleek row of administrative offices, the largest campus knitting lab in the country, and a glorious two-story, full-floor student commons. Energy-efficient lighting and climate control, natural construction materials, rooftop solar panels, and more green touches put the building on track to receive LEED Gold certification. However, Bill Sharples, the partner at SHoP who oversaw the project, says its most sustainable aspect stems from the original concept: “We took the most underutilized piece of the campus and turned it into an incredibly valuable academic experience.”
Sharples wanted the new building to offer passersby a view into the process of making. A new double-height knitting lab, once hidden in FIT’s basement, is one of the centerpieces of the design. Each circular knitting machine in the space is haloed by a light fixture.
Photo by Chris Payne.
The structure incorporates FIT’s Feldman Building, completed in 1959, in a remarkable way. Clad in panels of aluminum tessellated to resemble fabric, Feldman, Sharples says, “is architecture that gets into your subconscious.” The new building uses the old one as its fourth wall, creating both a dramatic backdrop and, in the connective space between the two structures, a soaring, 15-foot-wide cathedral-like atrium. While absolutely contemporary, the new building reframes and reinvigorates the past.
Creators of the futuristic, organic Barclays Center in Brooklyn and the terra cotta and brass exteriors of the skyscraper at 111 West 57th Street, SHoP specializes in work that arrests attention while acknowledging its surroundings. “We think about not only ‘place-making’ but also ‘place-keeping,’” Sharples says.
From the start, Dr. Brown insisted on creating a student commons worthy of their talent and ambition. The spectacular fifth-floor gathering space answers that call in grand style. The full-floor lounge features 20-foot ceilings, giant windows looking out on 28th Street, a snack bar, and a staffed library kiosk. As soon as the building opened, students flooded the space to chat, study, collaborate, and create. “It lifts your spirits to see it,” Dr. Brown says.
Photo by Chris Payne.
The winner of a 2003 National Endowment for the Arts design competition, the long-awaited building is also a testament to Dr. Brown’s vision and fortitude. “When I arrived at FIT, I said that when I leave, I want everyone to know I’ve been here,” she said. “I think I achieved that.”
