Designed by architect Thom Mayne of Morphosis, there is also an exhibition gallery and auditorium for public programs and retail space on the ground level.

Its demolition for the construction of the Academic Building was part of a broader plan to expand the university's "campus" and redevelop the neighboring area.

[2] Local residents and community groups opposed the plan and proceeded with a lawsuit in hopes that the college's application would be rejected.

They felt the proposal would turn the low-rise artistic character of the East Village into a typical midtown high-rise business district.

The bulk of the two new buildings were reduced, Taras Shevchenko Place was to remain and the development of the lot on Stuyvesant Street was no longer pursued.

Its revenue consisted of rent collected on the land below the Chrysler Building, which it owns, alumni donations, and an investment portfolio.

Prior to Cooper Union's expansion plan, the campus consisted of three academic buildings, one for each of the disciplines of art, architecture, and engineering, and a seventeen-story dormitory.

The area around the site consists mostly of low to mid-rise buildings with small commercial businesses on ground level and residential spaces above.

Recent projects, most of which are part of the Cooper Union expansion plan, have started to change the modest physical profile.

Both Mayne and Cooper Union wanted to create an iconic building that embodied the institution's values and aspirations as a center for advanced education in art, architecture and engineering.

Its form was created by carving out program space and circulation paths and is contained and accentuated in a steel lattice envelope that reaches the full height of the building.

The main elevators are treated in a similar fashion where stops are limited to the first, fifth and eight floors, encouraging occupants to use the sky bridges and stairs.

The exterior façade is made up of a stainless steel curtain wall that wraps the entire building and was used by Morphosis earlier in their design of Caltrans District 7 Headquarters.

[10] The building's eighth-floor green roof houses a three-ton marble eagle sculpture, formerly at Cooper Union's Albert Nerken School of Engineering at 51 Astor Place, and originally part of the 1910 Pennsylvania Station.

[1] It employs standard methods of construction where a reinforced concrete framing is cast on site and enclosed in an aluminum and glass curtain wall.