Princeton University prepares to open new psychology and neuroscience … – The Star-Ledger

PRINCETON — With windows throughout offering panoramic views of the Princeton University campus, and an interior layout meant to let students move easily between classrooms and research space, the school’s new psychology and neuroscience buildings are on the cutting edge.

At the same time, the $180 million structure of two linked building will be “fundamentally timeless” when it opens in January, said Ron McCoy, the university’s architect.

“This is not a statement in fashion or a particularly trendy building, this is a deeply-felt understanding of some pretty timeless conditions of form, material and particularly light,” McCoy said during a tour of the building yesterday. “Those conditions of intimacy and variety are characteristics of the campus that have been with us since the 19th century and this is just a modern interpretation of some of those same conditions and traditions.”

McCoy spoke via video conference as the school showed off the nearly complete building on the site of a former parking lot on Washington Road. Faculty will begin moving in in December, university officials said.

Architect Jose Rafael Moneo, who designed the complex in collaboration with Davis Brody Bond of New York, said via video conference from Madrid that his design aimed to enhance relationships among faculty and students and provide the right atmosphere for work on an “exciting subject.”

The building facades have panels of serrated, artisanal cast glass from Spain and high-performance glazed and clear glass in an aluminum framed curtain wall. One wing, Peretsman-Scully Hall, which has five levels above ground and two below, will be home to the psychology department. The other wing, with two stories above ground and two below, will be home to the Princeton Neuroscience Institute focused on the brain and nervous system.

The complex links two different but complementary branches of study, designers and university officials said. The neuroscience institute was launched in 2005 and is led by professors in psychology and molecular biology.

“Princeton is fully dedicated to being at the forefront of this field, both in its teaching and research missions,” Jonathan Cohen, a professor in neuroscience and psychology, said in a university press release. “Being in closer proximity to other major science buildings on campus, including physics, chemistry and, of course psychology, genomics and molecular biology should greatly help facilitate collaborations — both existing ones and the creation of new ones.”

Psychology department chair Deborah Prentice said the new facilities will change how faculty members work.

“We will be able to conduct research more easily and imagine research more creatively than in the past. On the teaching front, having state-of-the-art teaching facilities contiguous with the research spaces means we will be able to move students between the two,” she said in the release.

The 248,000-square-foot complex can accommodate 50 faculty, 30 staff and 250 to 300 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and research staff.

The buildings aim to meet LEED Silver standards, using the glass facade to bring in natural light, chilled beams for heating and cooling rather than ducts, and a 12,000-gallon cistern to recycle rainwater. They include labs, several kitchenettes and student lounges, an outdoor cafe-style sitting area, a 147-seat auditorium and corner meeting rooms on several floors with views of the campus, senior project manager Ahmed Sultan said.

The university had previously included the complex in a 2008 campus plan and expected to complete it last year. The project was deferred during the recession, said Anne St. Mauro, assistant vice president for facilities, design and construction.

“As we worked our way through the financial crisis we were able to assure ourselves that we could afford to build this building and it was an opportunistic time to do so because of the dialing back of construction costs in 2009,” St. Mauro said.

Contact Jon Offredo at joffredo@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5680.


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