New York University
University Hall & University Hub
New York, NY

200,000 SF • 18,600 SQ M

This 20-story tower realizes NYU’s goal to create sophisticated student housing that combines the best of apartment- and campus-style living. Each of the 172 suites accommodates four students in two-bedroom layouts with kitchen, bath, and living room. The open plan rooms can be configured in numerous ways for privacy and convenience. Shared dining, laundry, study, and exercise rooms foster social interaction essential to campus community. Working within a fast-track design and construction schedule due to NYU’s housing shortage, Davis Brody Bond conducted substantial design workshops with students, administrators, and trustees. This process was integral to the project’s success, and the building has become the school’s most popular housing option.

Neighborhood residents and business owners lobbied for a contextual design, and city zoning mandated street wall setbacks and ground floor retail space. Davis Brody Bond integrated these concerns with NYU’s goals: University Hall presents a public storefront café to the sidewalk and its cast stone façade has a shifting pattern of windows and sills that creates a subtle variety unusual for a contemporary building. The upper floors are set back as required and clad in a crisp glass and metal wall system.

Several years after the building opened, Davis Brody Bond was again commissioned to expand its skylit dining hall into “University Hub,” a center for student resources, counseling, study abroad information, and food services. The new spaces are finished in warm, durable materials and look onto landscaped gardens in the building’s courtyard.

(Photography by Paul Warchol)