New Jersey Transit Building |








The new headquarters of New Jersey Transit is situated on Raymond Boulevard in Newark facing a fine late Art Deco train station. A three bay entrance loggia of glass and granite defines the corner of the lobby at the edges of the lot. The axis of the loggia is oriented towards the station to announce the Transit building and receive people arriving from that direction.
A second lobby at the opposite end of the project serves a law firm which occupies the upper floors of the building. The curtain wall facing Raymond Boulevard unites the two entrances by weaving in and out of the building structure of pre-cast concrete clad columns and creating an abstract rectilinear composition parallel with the street.
The loggia is part of a plan composition of four horizontal bands consisting of circulation areas and elevator banks which are arranged in a sliding relationship to each other like stone trains leaving a metaphoric platform.
These horizontal bands are developed three dimensionally as tall rectangular elements with individual characteristics. The loggia piers are clad in polished red granite and the vertical rhythm of silver oxidized aluminum mullions is continued into the curtain wall. The first elevator bank is clad in polished rose beige Segney limestone and its front is cantilevered out over the lobby at a ten degree angle, indicating the entrance to the elevators. The second elevator bank is clad in flamed limestone and forms the back of the lobby; it is hollowed out to create the main reception desk. The floor of grey granite in polished and flamed patterns expresses these sliding geometries.
This layering of space organizes the circulation from the street to the main lobby, to the elevators and into the building. The tight perimeter skin of the glass curtain wall is contrasted with the internal visual movement of the sliding elements and a tension between the two is developed that responds to the urban context of traffic and pedestrian movement.