Syska Hennessy Group Cornell University Project Receives ACEC Engineering Excellence Diamond Award and ENR New York's 2014 Best Projects Award

NEW YORK, Dec. 3, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Syska Hennessy Group, Inc., a global consulting, engineering and commissioning firm, has announced that the new 100,000 square-foot Bill & Melinda Gates Hall, the new site for the Computing and Information Science (CIS) department at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, has received both an Engineering Excellence Diamond Award from the renowned American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) and a 2014 Best Projects Award in the Higher Education Category from leading industry trade publication Engineering-News Record (ENR). Syska Hennessy Group provided key consulting and design services for this groundbreaking new college campus building, where leading-edge technology ideas will continue to be created, tested and advanced.

Named for its primary benefactors, the new Bill & Melinda Gates Hall is comprised of 100,000 square-feet of faculty offices, classrooms, laboratory space, department and program office space for the Cornell CIS faculty and students. It was designed to bring all of the CIS departments together in one facility as well as facilitate interaction between CIS departments. The new building features convenient workspaces organized around an open atrium space encompassing four levels, and a covered entry plaza providing a space for social interaction outside. Project laboratories and breakout rooms are designed as flexible multi-purpose spaces. Syska Hennessy Group provided critical design work, featuring energy efficient systems, lighting design, as well as use of the latest energy modeling and design tools for this award-winning project.

Cornell University wanted a redesigned site to house its CIS department that would foster new interdisciplinary and collaborative activities for both faculty and students. They also needed a high-performance space that would make heavy use of computational research and tools and be enabled by cutting-edge technology. This became a complex project that required coordination among several disciplines as well as with the overall CIS design team, who were tasked with bringing an entire new design to a building with limited space and a small footprint. Through Syska's innovative design work and collaboration with the other members of the design team and Cornell University staff, the building design has achieved all performance metrics, on time and on on-budget.

"Syska is honored to receive both of these recognitions as a part of a design team that has helped create an iconic, high-performance building that will advance engineering sciences in computation and information technology for years to come," said Sergiu Pelau, project manager. "Syska is committed to excellence in every task it takes on, and the new Bill & Melinda Gates Hall for Cornell University is a stand-out among the many successful project achievements we have had throughout our company's history."

Morphosis Architects designed the Bill and Melinda Gates Hall which is currently awaiting LEED Gold certification, exceeding the initial LEED Silver goal.

For more information, please contact Tom Nolan through Email or call 212.741.2977. Additional quotes are available upon request.

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SOURCE Syska Hennessy Group

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