Metropolis - Queens Botanical Garden

""""""'""'"""'"'IIi'1I1jjiOne 01 New York"'slesser-knownbotanical gardens emerges as aleade.. in sustainable design.In 1999, when the Queens Botanical Garden began planningits new visitors' center, the LEED program that is now the currencyof the green-building movement was still a nascent tool. New YorkCity, meanwhile, was in the process of creating its own guidelinesfor "high-performance" buildings. Especially in the realm of publiclyfinanced projects, the era of green architecture was just dawning.Now the newly opened $14 million visitors' center and administrationbuilding, designed by BKSK Architects, is on deck to receivea piatinum LEED rating, making it one of the city's first structuresin that exalted category. Moreover, two years after the passage oflocal law 86, which requires many new city buildings to receiveSilver, Gold, or Platinum ratings, the 16,000-square-foot Queensstructure "is showing people that it can be done," says John Krieble,who heads the Department of Design and Construction's sustainabledesignunit. "It's one thing to talk about it; it's another thing to seeit here in three dimensions, working."Krieble, who inherited the city's green-building program fromHilary Brown, its founder, says his group is currently advising on 40buildings. But that's just the beginning: Mayor Michael Bloomberg'sblueprint for future development, dubbed PlaNYC 2030, containsambitious environmental goals, for which the Queens building isboth trailblazer and laboratory. For city officials charged with makingthe mayor's vision a reality, the Queens project ("demystifies LEED and green building."Its effects are also being felt beyond the hallsof government. Unlike other green city buildingssuchas the LEED-certified NYC Office of EmergencyManagement, in Brooklyn, by Swanke HaydenConnell Architects-the Queens facility is open tothe public. And it makes lessons in sustainabilityeasy to grasp. On a,wet day visitors can watch raincollect on the gull-shaped roof over the outdoorThe Queens BDtanical Garden's new visitDrs' center andadministrative building, designed by BKSKArchitects,edges the urban landscape Dn Dne side and the BS-acregarden Dnthe Dther.