Milstein Hall is a 47,000 square foot building at Cornell University designed by OMA as a bridge between architecture buildings. It has a steel structure with long cantilevers, the longest extending 48 feet. The structure uses a hybrid of truss designs including Warren trusses and Vierendeel trusses composed of large steel members up to W14x730. The trusses are supported by columns on a strict grid and transfer loads to caisson foundations in the bedrock. The structure provides an open floor plan beneath exposed trusses and a green roof above.

1. MILSTEIN HALL BY OMA
Long span Cantiliver case study

2. • Location: Ithaca, New York
Architect: OMA (Office for
Metropolitan Architecture)
Area: 47,000 SF
Client: Cornell University
Awards: LEED Gold certification
in August 2012.

3. STRUCTURE
• Design Intent
• Act as a bridge between existing architecture buildings to unify the architecture complex.
• Provide interaction between buildings as a collaborative space.
• Cantilevers over University Avenue to provide visual connection to the Foundry
• the large open area of the top plate, structurally supported by a hybrid network of beams 1200 tons of steel is used to
support both long overhangs. The design, led by Shohei Shigematsu, partner of OMA and Rem Koolhaas, encourages
interaction and allows flexible use in time.
These hybrid exposed steel trusses were designed to balance the structural efficiency of the cantilever and maintain
freedom of movement within the great open floor plan. The solution was obtained by optimizing the diagonal framing
members, to correspond to the diagram of tension along the structure. The result was a hybrid framework in which the steel
parts are read more diagonally high tension forces and gradually become vertical, when the tension forces diminish near
the centre of the plant.
• A field of lights designed to measure chilled beams was carefully coordinated with structural and mechanical systems,
where possible using hidden functional elements to define the ceiling plane
•

4. • Milstein Hall, used as the studio building of Cornell University’s
School of Architecture, has a steel structure. The cantilevered
part of the building rises 15 meters above the street in front of
it. To make such a long overhang, the entire storey must work
like a beam. In order to achieve this in steel structures, the
mass to be operated as console should be surrounded by a
huge truss system from the floor to the roof

5. ROOF PLATE
• Green Roof
• Skylights increasing in size towards the center of the
building.
• Dot Pattern through use of two types of sedum.
Milstein Hall

6. FOUNDATION
• Relatively few columns supporting Milstein Hall’s heavy superstructure.
• Cylindrical concrete caissons placed beneath the footings and column caps
almost 30 feet below the ground to touch the solid bedrock
• design and Transportation Considerations
The open, exposed trusses were a design feature in the architect’s plan
to provide a space that is aesthetically pleasing while not
limiting the overall flow. That plan also included two cantilevers,
the longest extending 48 ft over a busy campus road and walkway

7. • The structural engineer designed the single-story trusses composing the
structure of the second floor and roof as a five-part hybrid system
incorporating both Warren truss and Vierendeel truss sections.
• The resulting large member sizes—standard wide-flange sections with
the largest being a W14×730—made shop fabrication into truss sections
preferable to field assembly of smaller components, although it
increased the transportation challenge.
• Even so, splicing the 17 truss sections together on site required 165 full
and partial joint penetration welds.

8. STRUCTURAL SYSTEM
• Consists of a large floor plate.
• Raised above the ground on a grid
of columns.
• Transfers all the loads vertically to
the ground
• Cantilevers in two directions.
• University Avenue to the North,
Sibley Hall to the South
• Columns lay in a strict grid

9. • Four single story-high trusses.
• Two at each end.
• Supported on four rows of
columns.
• • The trusses are a hybrid: the
traditional truss design and the
Vierendeel design.
• Actually rigid frames with some
slanted members to reduce
bending
stresses

10. • Facade
• The outer skin of the upper floor responds with different materials to the demands of their position in the
building.
The glass wall is a continuous band of 3.66 meters high, just framed in its upper and lower part with
simple and fine marble Turkish bands that define the extension of the upper floor. The natural veining of
the marble, vertically and black and gray color, enrich the outside with a specific scale and unique
material, however, serves to unite the different buildings in this area of campus, despite their different
architectural styles.
• The unique nature of the striations of marble, directly influenced the design of the identification of Milstein
Hall building, located in the south eastern front overhang. The building name is recorded directly to the
height of the marble panels in vertical banding while dissolve inside the stone.

11. • Ceiling
• Under the slab composing the upper floor, a continuous perforated aluminum ceiling
extends. Metal panels manufactured with a stamping machine for cars, define a scale
that is perceptible both for those who pass under the overhang along the University
Avenue, and pedestrians occupying the spaces below. Vernacular reference to the
perforated metal New York, ceilings create an urban environment, together with the
existing old facades Rand and Foundry Sibley.