Cornell tech campus plan lacks cohesion: community board

The Roosevelt Island community board reviewed updated plans last night for the first academic building at the 2.1 million-square-foot Cornell University tech campus, and found that proposals for the massive project “lack cohesion.”

The board noted there would be no audio looping for the hearing impaired outside of public spaces on the building’s first floor. Loops generate a magnetic field recognized by a hearing aid.

And resident Judy Berdy complained that renderings show that almost all of the trees, mostly found on the northern end of the site, would be removed as a result of the project.

There are multiple architects working on the campus on different construction schedules, Curbed reported. Board members expressed concerns that this might create communication problems for such issues as garbage disposal. Designers include Handel Architects, Morphosis Architects’ Thom Mayne, Skidmore Owings & Merrill and Weiss/Manfredi Architecture. [Curbed] — Mark Maurer