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Brooklyn Children's Museum
Building the Country's First Green
Children's Museum
by Amy S. Choi
The Brooklyn Children's Museum is coming up green.
The current museum - the world's first children's museum
when it opened in 1899 - is a small, 50,000-sq.-ft. structure
below street level located in the Crown Heights section of
Brooklyn. It was originally designed by Hardy Holzman and
Pfeiffer Associates to be level with the park behind the building
and save on energy costs.
But soon the new $39 million Children's Museum will be the
country's first green children's museum, and it will be far
from hidden. The new sustainable design is a low, L-shaped,
two-story structure around the existing footprint, doubling
its size and giving the museum visibility in the community.
Designed by Rafael Vinoly Architects, PC. of New York, N.Y.,
the bright yellow mosaic-tiled façade on the second
story is punctuated by windows, while the entire street level
is glass, allowing passers-by to look inside to the exhibits.
The new museum will offer a 2,000-sq.-ft. children's library,
wireless networking for digital exhibits, an exhibit exclusively
for toddlers, 200-seat theater and a 2,400-sq.-ft. Kid's Café
that opens onto the rooftop terrace.
The design team also kept the signature man-made stream that
ran through the interior of the building and earth berms that
cover it on two sides.
The museum hopes to nearly double its visitor base with the
new space, which broke ground in October and is slated to
open mid-2006 and educate the community using both the interiors
and exteriors of the building.
"From the museum educational perspective, we've historically
focused on teaching urban kids about the environment and nature,"
said Carol Enseki, president of the museum. "There was
recognition when we first opened that lots of city kids had
no access to nature, so we wanted to give them that."
The physical necessities of creating a sustainable, LEED-certified
building should encourage innovative ways of teaching about
environmental issues and safety, Enseki added.
The building will feature geothermal test wells for the museum's
heating and cooling system, the first for a cultural institution
in New York; a photovoltaic panel system on the roof, which
converts solar energy into electrical power; carbon dioxide,
occupancy and daylight sensors to regulate the building's
heating and lighting systems; and renewable and recyclable
materials for the finish and surface treatments of the building.
For example, the designers utilized rapidly renewable resources
for the flooring, including bamboo and cork, and recycled
vinyl, carpet and glass for other elements.
Once the building opens, the museum will show children the
inner workings of the sustainable design. Enseki plans to
have an exhibit on the rooftop so that children can learn
how the photovoltaic panels work, energy is generated and
light is manipulated. Visitors will also learn about the geothermal
wells.
"We incorporated these elements, especially the photovoltaic
panels, so that they are visible to the public and the kids,"
said Laura Gelso, project manager for Rafael Vinoly. "They
are a great asset to the building."
Achieving all of the green goals, however, will be difficult
for the construction team. "We have to very closely monitor
the materials and make sure that all of our contractors and
subcontractors meet the LEED requirements," said Alton
Lewis, senior project manager for Parsippany, N.J.-based Skanska
U.S.A., the construction manager. "We haven't done a
green building of this scale before, and it's a very unique
building."
Though it was natural to highlight the green elements of
the building for educational purposes, the design itself was
not the "most obvious," Gelso said. "The plan
wasn't easy to work with because there are three different
types of grids that make up the layers of the existing floors,"
she added. "The fact that the site was underground was
very tricky, and we wanted to make sure that the two buildings
were integrated."
The solution was to expand the lobby, but make sure that
the expansion shared an entrance with the existing building.
The new 4,000-sq.-ft. lobby doubles the size of the existing
lobby and integrates the properties with each other and with
the streetscape.
Ultimately, the green building will generate energy savings
of $103,000 per year to New York City, which owns the building.
While it is the first of its kind, it is certainly not the
last. Financially and philosophically, the museum is having
an impact outside of its Crown Heights home.
"I believe there are currently five other projects in
process to create LEED-certified children's museums in the
country," Enseki said. "We always joke about how
amazing it would be to harness the energy that kids have and
put it to work. We believe we're doing that now."
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