Over the last two decades, the University of Cincinnati has created a campus internationally recognized for its architecture and planning. It now boasts one of the most extensive collections of contemporary architecture anywhere in the country, and one of its most compelling recent additions is Moore Ruble Yudell's Joseph A. Steger Center for Student Life and associated Main Street project. Conceived in collaboration with internationally recognized architects including Morphosis, Gwathmey Siegel and landscape architect George Hargreaves, the Main Street project forms a new spine of campus activity organized along major pedestrian and topographic paths. It links existing and new buildings along a thin, curving campus site, traversing nearly 600 feet in length and a 55-foot vertical drop. Building the center on a residual campus space demanded that the design team surgically inscribe the building into the existing campus fabric. As a result, the building's shallow depth and long envelope shape a penetrable, ribbon-like form.