To transform a foreboding neighbor into a community contributor, the redesigned Syracuse complex forges a new relationship with its context to become a neighborhood asset. From the neighborhood and the highway, the Energy Campus serves as a beacon and symbol of the University’s commitment to sustainability.
Won through a design competition, the Energy Campus is an integral part of the University’s Climate Action Plan. In addition to producing cleaner and more efficient power, heat, and cooling through cogeneration, it knits the power plant back to the surrounding urban fabric, introducing synergistic programming for the University and its neighborhood. The new architecture actively supports this transformation, enabling programmatic overlaps and educational opportunities, reducing the new buildings’ mass and scale, and emphasizing openness. An elevated public path, the Education Loop – snakes through the entire complex.
The campus includes a new cogeneration plant, chiller plant, storage facility and offices. The obsolete 1926 Steam Station is gutted and repurposed for academic and community use. A green market, teaching kitchen and community rooms fill the ground floor and engage the street; the upper floors house classrooms, offices and laboratories. Greenhouses, warmed with the cogeneration plant’s waste heat, occupy the roof.
