Yale Science Building Plaza

A new social and cultural center for Yale’s Science Hill precinct relates to new and existing buildings through this broad, nuanced commons opening up to Prospect Street. The landscape orchestrates movement and furnishes a variety of shaded, intimate landscapes for refreshment and for gathering. Built on structure, atop laboratories and a library, the plaza elegantly mitigates elevational variations for building access and neighborhood connections.

Immediately prior to this project, Reed Hilderbrand led the creation of the Landscape Framework Plan for Science Hill & Upper Prospect. Whereas previously Sciences facilities had merely engaged their own sites in an ad hoc fashion, Reed Hilderbrand’s vision articulated the means of connecting facilities continuously by engaging topography and commanding hillside views; weaving accessible paths through a connective fabric; and expressing the legacy of science in the garden. Pelli Clarke Pelli and STANTEC engaged Reed Hilderbrand to apply this knowledge at the inception of the Sciences Center project, which followed the demolition of a very large existing building partially sunken below-grade.