March 2008

Queens Botanical Garden Is Building Green

Story by Emily Andren

In September, 2007, the Queens Botanical Garden celebrated the completion of a new Horticulture/Maintenance Building and a Visitor & Administration Building designed to attain a Platinum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) award, the highest U.S. Green Building Council's rating. With its planted green roof, photovoltaic cells and geothermal heating and cooling, the garden's new Visitor & Administration Center is the most advanced green building in New York City.

"Because we are an environmental education institution, it made perfect sense to set goals from the beginning to strive for a platinum LEED® award,"says Jennifer Ward Souder, the Queens Botanical Gardens' Director of Capital Projects.

"When the City of New York was putting together new guidelines for high performance buildings, we asked to be a pilot project and were selected. The guidelines were very similar to LEED®, which were then in the works, so it was a natural that the project would go for LEED®."

As a city project, an outside consultant was required, so Viridian Energy & Environmental, LLC was chosen to handle energy modeling. Viridian has an excellent track record in compiling large amounts of data for award-winning LEED® submissions.

Asked about the costs of going green, Souder comments: "Environmentally friendly materials which formerly cost much more are now readily available for construction, including furniture, paints and sealants with low volatile organic compounds (VOCs), chemicals found in many common products and building materials that can escape into the air and cause illness and allergic reactions. Also, grant funding of $1/2 million was earmarked for testing our geothermal system and energy modeling."

From design kickoff in early 2000 to grand opening in 2007, attended by Mayor Bloomberg, the design took five years, and the nearly completed construction took 3.5 years.

Over 20% of building materials were produced within 500 miles, saving energy and money on transportation and supporting the local economy. Over 75% of the waste produced during the construction of the Visitor & Administration Building has been diverted from the landfill through recycling and reuse. Most wood-based materials were certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, which ensures that responsible forestry methods were used in the harvesting of timber products.

The design and orientation of the Visitor & Administration Building delivers sunlight to 90% of the interior space and maximizes natural ventilation. The building will use approximately 40% less energy than a typical building its size, thanks to the geothermal heating and cooling system and rooftop photovoltaic panels. Every year these systems will prevent the release of over 40 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the equivalent of removing nine cars from the road. Annual energy costs will be reduced by over $7,000, and the savings will be passed on to New York City.

An exciting new feature is the sloping 3,000-square-foot green roof garden, planted with a wide variety of low-maintenance, drought-resistant plant species, mostly native. An advanced membrane system protects the building underneath from leaks and damage.

>From certain vantage points in this beautiful garden, the terrace canopy in the background resembles a giant concert grand piano with the top up, giving the feel of an outdoor piano concert surrounded by nature with music filling the air. Even on a bleak February day, patches of burgundy, chartreuse and bluish-green plants are dotted over the ground. It is difficult to imagine that this garden's site was once a parking lot.

In controlling pest and weed damage, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) minimizes the use of synthetic chemical pesticides to reduce impact on human health, the environment, and other plants or animals. Also, Souder adds, once they stopped watering the roof garden, the weed growth dropped dramatically, but the plants continued to thrive.

"We won lots of LEED® points with our water system because of the high level of water conservation and storm water strategy," Souder says. "We don't generate as much graywater as a residential area but this was an educational opportunity to demonstrate to visitors how it is done."

Graywater collected from the garden and buildings is conserved, cleansed and recycled. Rainwater cascades from the terrace canopy into streams flowing beside and under the walkways and is then filtered and absorbed by a cleansing biotope and bioswales, instead of entering the city’s combined sewer, reducing pollution in the Long Island Sound.

"I am proud to have been a part of this from the start. It's a luxury to see it through from the beginning,"Souder exclaims. "It's gratifying see the public's response. People are excited about seeing how the water is processed, even though the construction is not 100% complete yet."