New York University wants to significantly redevelop the large space between the two "slab" residential towers of Washington Square Village with two crescent-shaped academic buildings placed in a yin-and-yang layout that would reflect light into the heart of a new sunken, 500,000-square-foot, two-level academic facility in the center.

According to an article by Matt Chaban in today's edition of The Architects' Newspaper, the reflection of light is "inspired, according to the architects, by Dominique Perrault's Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, a complex of four towers at the corners of a rectangular podium.

"Bookending" the sunken plaza, the two towers would consist of an 8-story building on LaGuardia Place and a 17-story building on Mercer Street, the article said, adding that "one of which may also include an elementary school, a nod to the community." The proposed new towers and plaza are shown in the illustration at the right.

NYU, the article continued, "intends to take the entire project before the City Planning Commission next year, after Landmarks determines what, if anything, can be built on the Silver Towers site."

The university, which is centered around Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, wants to expand by about six million square feet of space in the city over the next two decades. In recent years, it has encountered strong community opposition to its plans.

The article noted that NYU is "looking as far away as downtown Brooklyn and Governors Island for building opportunities," but "the heart of its plan - and of the university - remains in the blocks surrounding Washington Square Park, known as the Core. The university wants to put nearly half its new development in the area, much of it focused on the two Robert Moses superblocks north of Houston Street: Washington Square Village and the landmarked Silver Towers. By concentrating development in these already dense areas owned by the university, officials say, NYU can avoid buying up more of the Village."

"The university and its designers - Grimshaw, Toshiko Mori, and Michael Van Valkenburgh - are proposing," according to Mr. Chaban, "four thoughtful, albeit large, buildings that strive to minimize their impact on the neighborhood by peeling back the problematic parts of the superblocks, including serpentine fencing and landscapes, dreary street frontage, and a hodgepodge of circulation paths in order to create a more inviting environment."

"Mori," the article continued, "said the idea is to work within the logic of the disparate superblocks, where a plan for three slab buildings was abandoned by the original developer in the face of economic challenges in the late 1950s. Two of these Paul Lester Weiner-designed slabs were built, becoming University Village, which NYU then acquired along with the site of Silver Towers, which were built the following decade. 'This is not a tabula rasa,' Mori said. 'We're not replacing the buildings but rationalizing, enhancing, and making them better.'"

"The first piece of the plan to enter public review will be a tower designed by Grimshaw for the Silver Towers site. Rising to 38 stories (eight more than its neighbors), the new tower will pay tribute to I.M. Pei's distinctive facades with its own inventive glass treatment. The tower consists of four L-shaped volumes, with two elevated to create transparency and entrances, one for residents, the other for a controversial hotel."

"To the east of the towers is the squat Coles athletic center, which would be demolished to make way for the 17-story, Mori-designed Zipper Building, so called for the light wells creating bays in the structure's upper half. The Zipper would accommodate both a new grocery store and academic space."