New York University Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life

The Center for Academic and Spiritual Life at New York University brings together students and scholars from a wide variety of religious backgrounds into one multi-faith and multi-function building on the NYU campus. This ambitious project, recently completed in January, 2012, provides multi-denominational spaces for worship to be shared by a multiplicity of faiths within a single facility. Because it is intended to provide a home for the dozens of underserved religious organizations on the NYU campus, the design strives to provide a strong expression of the spiritual mission of the building without relying on a singular religious iconography.

We proposed that the ‘Tree of Life,’ an image which is shared by all major faiths, be the inspiration for the façade. The image of the tree, with all of its positive connotations (growth, expansive, spreading out of a common root, natural, providing shelter, food, beauty, etc.) together with the strong western architectural tradition of using ornamental motives based on natural forms, particular leaves, were two additional elements that provided even more impulse to the idea of the ‘tree of life.’