Engineering Café Receives 2014 Small Project Award

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has honored Ground, the engineering café, with a 2014 Small Project Award. Based on the theme of “Resourcefulness,” the 2014 awards recognize innovative small-project designs from around the world that, according to the AIA criteria, “turn nothing into something, transform liabilities and constraints into opportunities, and do more with less.”

Ground, located next to the Center for Engineering Innovation & Design in the Marcel Breuer-designed Becton Center, received the award in part because of its unique digital canvas installation. Nearly 450-square-feet in area and composed of over 23,000 individually-programmable light emitting diodes (LED), the dynamic digital display runs up the east wall of the café and wraps onto the ceiling.

The AIA judges described Ground as a “very delicate installation in an iconic historic building,” adding that the space has “an energy likely to stimulate creative thinking and thoughtful exchange. … A convincing coming together of clear spatial strategy, strong materials, and digital media that holds its own within a powerful work of modern architecture.” Additionally, the AIA has provided further architectural Notes of Interest describing Ground.

Sitting between Yale’s central campus, which primarily houses the humanities, and Science Hill, Ground was envisioned by Dean of the School of Engineering & Applied Science Kyle Vanderlick to encourage interactions between faculty and students of all disciplines. “We wanted to provide a space for the broader community to gather, to chat informally, to have a sense of a ‘home,’” she said.

Ground was designed by the architecture firm Bentel & Bentel, a company best known for its work on fashionable restaurants, including New York City’s Gramercy Tavern, Le Bernardin, and the Modern, the restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art. The architects suggested the LED canvas as a key aspect in the new café, an idea eagerly received for its potential as an attractive intersection of science and art.

The café is also notable for being what SEAS Deputy Dean Vincent Wilczynski calls “uniquely Yale,” with the team of Yale-affiliated contributors including alumni Jeff Cassis — the CEO at Philips/Color Kinetics — and Rob and Rich Charney of Charney Architects, as well as “NYC King of LED” Ted Pearlman, the parent of a Yale undergrad. Additionally, Wilczynski discussed the project with internationally-recognized light sculptor Leo Villareal, a Yale alumnus best known for his San Francisco-based installation "The Bay Lights."

“I believe the installation will develop as a new cultural, visual icon on campus, and Prospect Street is going to change, because of the light, the energy, the activity,” said Wilczynski. “Engineering will make its way out into the street. And engineering makes it all work.”

A list of award honorees in all categories, including photos, can be found on the AIA 2014 awards page.