Westchester Community College Gateway Center, Valhalla, NY
The new 70,000-sq-ft 3-story Westchester Community College Gateway Center was developed to help the college bolster its focus on workforce development. The V-shaped building, designed by Ennead Architects of New York City, includes state-of-the-art classrooms, seminar rooms, a lecture hall, computer labs and language labs equipped with leading-edge technology to integrate students learning English into the fabric of the campus.
The building consists of two wings that embrace a green courtyard and are connected by a multi-story transparent glass lobby and welcome center. A horizontal zinc column forms the upper level of the north wing, which appears to float above the ground plate. At its southern edge, daylight is filtered through a delicate steel sunscreen in a series of seminar rooms. Locally-quarried stone, zinc and glass form the building’s primary materials.