Rutgers New Business School Designed by TEN Arquitectos Is Now Under Construction

Business school applications at <strong><a href="http://www.rutgers.edu" target="_blank">Rutgers University</a></strong> shot up by 45% in the last year so it seemed natural for the university to expand their business school presence on their Livingston Campus in Piscataway, New Jersey. In October of this year, Rutgers broke ground on a new 5-story, $50 million, 155,800 square foot business school facility designed by architecture firm <strong><a href="http://www.ten-arquitectos.com/" target="_blank">TEN Arquitectos</a></strong>.

The new business school will accommodate five academic departments and research centers organized in clusters. The site will include faculty offices, visiting scholar offices, and conference/meeting room space.

The building will also house a business library, classrooms, breakout rooms, and Executive Education Center and a Global Financial Center that features a state-of-the-art trading floor.

TEN Arquitectos sought to integrate the building with the landscape while promoting learning, interaction, and community.

They used <strong><a href="http://inhabitat.com/the-nutmeg-house-is-an-efficient-ellipse-shaped-residence-in-dorchester-uk/" target="_blank">passive solar strategies</a></strong> as a basis for the design and opened up the northeast facade of the building with glass walls to benefit from heat gain in the morning and to allow natural daylight to reach the center of the structure.

They closed off the southwest side of the building to mitigate the constant thermal heat changes that occur on that exposure.

Furthermore, the building will be powered, in part, by the university's 7-acre solar farm on the Livingston Campus. 

For water efficiency, the architects specified <strong><a href="http://inhabitat.com/7-eco-friendly-tips-to-green-your-bathroom/" target="_blank">low water-use plumbing fixtures</a></strong>.

The $50 million building is part of a larger $85 million redevelopment, which will include student housing, a conference center and a hotel. 

The new building was funded partially by a $10 million anonymous gift received as part of a $13 million donation to the "Our Rutgers, Our Future" fundraising campaign in 2007.

 It is scheduled to open August 2013 — just in time for the Fall semester.