Mia Andreu Back to index

The Andreu Building: Jacobs Hall rebuilt as a LEED Platinum campus hub

As project manager, I led a team of three in redesigning NYU's Jacobs building in Revit. The goal was to show that a LEED Platinum building doesn't need a billion-dollar budget.

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Station
NYC NYU Tandon
Role
Project manager, Doing Modern Design
Team
3 students
Tool
Autodesk Revit
UN goal
SDG 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities; SDG 4, Quality Education
When
Fall 2023
Budget
$28M, 8 stories
Result
First Place, Nick Russo Award
Revit rendering of the Andreu Building exterior facade
FIG. 1 — Exterior facade rendering

Overview

Our team, Doing Modern Design, reimagined NYU's Jacobs building as a sustainable, technology-forward campus facility. The mission was a healthy relationship between technology and the environment, at a realistic price.

In Autodesk Revit, we designed a complete reconstruction targeting LEED Platinum: eight stories with 100 dorms, 18 classrooms, full MEP systems, and rooftop green space. Every decision weighed environmental performance, occupant wellness, and cost.

The team

Mia AndreuProject manager
David PalmaHead of design
Dereck SotoHead of analytics

The brief we set

Rebuild the Jacobs building as a sustainable campus hub that combines green building strategies, smart technology, and community space, reaches LEED Platinum, and stays within a realistic budget.

Six systems behind the rating

Solar heat gain windows
High-performance glazing cuts cooling loads while letting daylight deep into every floor.
Smart LED lighting
Occupancy-sensing fixtures adapt to use and reduce energy on every floor.
Rainwater reuse
Collected, filtered rainwater feeds irrigation and non-potable building use.
Heat island reduction
A green roof and high-albedo materials lower surrounding temperatures.
Integrated security
Access control and monitoring built into the building's smart infrastructure.
Low-emission commuting
Bike storage, EV charging, and proximity to transit.

A building people use

Beyond LEED, we wanted a campus destination. The ground floor has a vendor leasing area and a café to bring life to the street. The upper floors add open collaborative space and green-space technology that brings nature indoors.

The full Andreu Building project poster
FIG. 2 — Full project poster

What it costs

The Andreu Building comes in at $28 million. NYU's John A. Paulson Center, a comparable campus building, cost $1.2 billion.

Paulson CenterNYU, as built
$1.2B
The Andreu BuildingOur design
$28M

We didn't cut corners. We made smarter choices: passive strategies like solar heat gain management, long-life materials, and systems that lower operating cost over the building's life.

What I learned

  • How to manage scope, timeline, and roles as project manager on a technical design
  • The real tradeoffs between sustainability features and budget
  • How to use Revit for architectural modeling, MEP coordination, and visualization
  • That LEED is a framework for systematic decision-making, not a checklist
  • How to present technical work to non-technical stakeholders

Treat LEED Platinum as a design constraint, not an add-on, and a high-performance building can also be affordable and pleasant to use.

AUTODESK REVITLEED PLATINUMBIM MEP SYSTEMSSUSTAINABLE DESIGNPROJECT MANAGEMENT