St. Vincent Health Sciences Center | Queens, New York, USA | 2024

Architects: CannonDesign
Design Team: Phil Dordai, John Reed, Moray Newton, Aneta Mancheno, Deborah Verne, Dan Sheen, Demos Simatos, Dale Greenwald, Alice Allan, Danielle Schmidt, Dan Warner, Brian Alesius, Tim Costello, Paul Kondrat, Erik Terry, David Feth, Amy Purcell,  Amir Rezaei, Barrett Newell, Kristin Miller, and Kieran Hurata
General Contractor: Shawmut Design and Construction, Inc.
Client: St. John's University, Jacques C. Theus- Executive Director, Design & Construction
Photographers: Scott Frances, Laura Peters

This project entails the design of a $70M 70,000-sf building located on the edge of the Queens Campus’s historic Great Lawn. It occupies the T-shaped footprint of a 1920’s residence hall, St Vincent’s, which originally served as a monastery. The building provides space for a new campus program designed to educate the health care workers of tomorrow. It contains a variety of simulation labs, teaching labs, classrooms, and faculty offices, all centered around a skylit three-story study commons located at the heart of the building.

The Health Sciences Center is designed to respond to the varied site conditions around it. The north façade faces the Great Lawn and out of respect for the historic Chapel, St Augustine Hall, and St John’s Hall, takes a quieter more deferential approach to its massing. Its height and width match the original St Vincent’s Hall while its fenestration system is syncopated to match the proportion of the gothic stone buildings which ring the Great Lawn. On the south, facing the more contemporary and colorful residential precinct, the building presents itself in a more sculptural fashion with a raised terrace/overlook and curving flank reflecting University Drive’s geometry and acknowledging the honorific east campus entry from Gate 7. At the east and west ends of the building, two special architectural features (we’ve internally nicknamed - lanterns) align and visually engage with prominent campus elements.

This all-electric building (Local Law 97) received a $1.4 million NYSERDA/Con Ed Rebate. Its 66 well geothermal system, rooftop solar photo voltaic panels, atrium skylights, and mechanical systems reduce energy loads and CO2 emissions and will provide significant cost savings to the University over time.