H3 Creates New Home for New York Academy of Sciences

The New York Academy of Sciences, going strong at 189 years, has moved its cramped quarters in a century-old Upper West Side mansion into H3-designed state-of-the-art offices on the 40th floor of 7 World Trade Center, two blocks from where it was born in 1819. Led by renowned architect Hugh Hardy, FAIA, H3 designed the new headquarters with space for 85 employees as well as meeting facilities for up to 300. H3 sliced the parallelogram floor plate on a north-south axis. The public side, which faces the historic Woolworth Building, contains a large lobby that connects to three conference rooms. The largest room has moveable walls that open to accommodate big groups. Administrative and support spaces, mostly open and filled with natural light courtesy of floor-to-ceiling windows, face the Hudson River. Noting that the academy has long recognized the connection between the sciences and the arts, the architect included an H3-designed, three-dimensional ceiling-to-floor map in the lobby that pinpoints the Academy’s 1817 founding place; vibrantly colored carpeting, also by H3, that replicates the DNA double-helix; and an 85-foot-long exhibition gallery.