|
|
Current Project
Construction Kickoff: August 2004
Scheduled Completion: September 2007
In September 2007, the Queens Botanical Garden will celebrate the completion of the Sustainable Landscapes & Buildings project, Phase I of the Queens Botanical Garden master plan.
Visitors arriving at the Garden’s Tree Gate on Main Street will be greeted by a fountain and meandering waterway that crosses the new entry plaza. The waterway is planted with native vegetation and is fed by recycled rainwater. Visitors who come by car will enter at the new Parking Garden, which uses swales and plantings to manage stormwater.
The Visitor & Administration Building will feature a large, covered outdoor terrace, a conference room, an auditorium, lobby store, restrooms, and visitor services on the first floor. New staff offices and meeting space will be on the building’s second floor. Extensive new collections surround the building, including the Plants in Community gardens, the constructed wetland, and the cleansing biotope. The Visitor & Administration Building also includes a planted green roof that slopes to ground level.
Behind the scenes, the new Horticulture/Maintenance Building provides much needed work and storage space for the Garden’s Horticulture and Maintenance staff.
Visitor & Administration Building details:
-
15,831 square feet
-
Program: auditorium, reception/gallery spaces, meeting rooms, public restrooms, offices
-
Construction systems: steel piles, steel structure with pre-cast concrete planks, poured in place concrete
-
Designed to achieve LEED™ (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) platinum rating
-
Received Green Building Design Competition Award jointly sponsored by the NYC Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
-
Rainwater feature, entry plaza, and terrace provide places for gathering and celebrating water
Horticulture/Maintenance Building details:
-
6,229 square feet
-
Program: offices, equipment/vehicle bays, maintenance/grounds workshops
-
Construction system: pre-manufactured building with steel structure, corrugated metal panels, corrugated translucent panels to maximize daylighting, and Forest Stewardship Council certified cedar siding.
Collections & Landscapes details:
New collections include the Plants in Community gardens, which present plant species native to the New York area arranged according to their botanical families. Featured families include Asclepiadaceae, Berberidaceae, Compositae, Fabaceae, Liliaceae, Polypodiaceae and Rosaceae.
Other new landscapes are both botanical collections and functional parts of the Garden’s water conservation and stormwater management systems. These include bioswales, a green roof, a cleansing biotope, and a constructed wetland.
To learn more about how this project helps our environment, please explore the Sustainable Systems page. |
