Monday LEEDoff: Architecture and Sustainability Meet at Riverhouse in Battery Park City

One particular critique of LEED that I frequently hear about is how the rating system does not recognize design excellence. Integrating sustainable elements into green architecture that captures the imagination is a challenge, and many architects believe that LEED should provide recognition to projects that are able to do so successfully.

The Sheldrake Organization’s 31-story, 264-unit Riverhouse at One Rockefeller Park condominium complex in Battery Park City appears to be one such project (image to the left via Interior Design). Scheduled for occupancy during the fourth quarter of this year, Sheldrake hopes that the project will achieve a LEED Gold rating. Its design team is a cast of all-stars- the exterior of the building was executed by Polshek Partnership Architects (the Clinton Presidential Center and the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the Museum of Natural History), layouts and space planning from Ismael Leyva Architects, and interior finishes and common areas, including the lobby, by David Rockwell’s Rockwell Group.

Green features will include a geothermal heating and cooling system, photovoltaic cells, low-E double-pane windows, a green roof, and Energy Star appliances. Moreover, twenty percent of building materials are recycled, eighty percent of waste from construction will be recycled, and forty percent of the total project materials are being procured from local manufacturers. In addition, at a cost of $1 million, the building’s wastewater treatment plant will recycle water for the HVAC system’s cooling tower, and the installation of 60kW microturbines will allow cogeneration of electricity and heat. In a nice tip of the cap to its commitment to sustainability, one of the building's commercial units will house specialty organic café City Bakery.

It’s great reading about high-profile projects where green design and architecture intersect in ambitious ways. The more experience that project teams have coordinating design and construction, the more compelling those designs will be. Battery Park City has been an incredible laboratory for green building in New York City. As its final round of sustainable residential high rises welcomes tenants over the next eighteen months, the question becomes where the next front in the greening of New York’s residential market will head- any thoughts?

• Green Residential Project: Riverhouse (Interior Design)