The Renzo Piano Building Workshop designed the building, in collaboration with Fox & Fowle Architects (AOR) and with WSP Flack + Kurtz as MEP engineers. The building's curtain wall has tubes placed outside the cladding to create a lace-like appearance. The interiors have daylight-responsive shading and light fixtures, designed with input from Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Extensive energy and three-dimensional heat flow analyses were performed by the Energy/Green/Commissioning group of another company. This group formed Viridian's nucleus in 2006. The work was co-funded by the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority.