While the Upstate Wild Center/Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks was the first museum in New York State to receive a LEED rating, earning Silver from USGBC back in February of 2008, the Rafael Vinoly-designed Brooklyn Children's Museum now has New York City's museums on the map after copping formal LEED Silver last week. The 102,000-square-foot museum- located in Crown Heights at the intersection of Brooklyn and St. Marks Avenues- is a striking departure from the architecture of the surrounding neighborhood, but is designed as such intentionally in order to engage the 400,000 visitors it is now expected to accommodate each year.
8.1 million electric yellow ceramic tiles clad the renovated two-story, L-shaped structure, which more than doubled the total square footage of the museum's former space. Green design features were LEED-standard, including recycled-content and renewable structural materials, and the museum is the first in the city to use a geothermal heating and cooling system. The project earned a 2009 Building Brooklyn Award in the Institutional category from the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce’s Real Estate and Development Committee. You may recall that Vinoly's similarly striking and also LEED-hopeful design for a new 121st Precinct station on Staten Island unfortunately failed to proceed past the design phase due to budget cuts.
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