green design

green design

Hitting the Wall: Upper East Side Yoga Studio's Green Wall Losing Battle With Scaffolding

Thu

Nov

What's not to like about a living wall? Where regular walls are (perhaps inevitably) drab and wall-like, a living wall is leafy and generally green-colored and alive. I barely remember what it was like to walk past The Colorado -- a condo building on the Upper East Side a couple blocks from my apartment -- before Pure Yoga moved into the space formerly known as The Space Behind The Gap back in 2008. But I remember vividly the experience of walking past the leafy, verdant facade provided by the living wall Pure Yoga installed. It was like a big vertical salad at first, and then was wild and blowy and lush during the summer months, and things like that stick in the memory. Sadly, though, that memory is about all that's left of the living wall at this point. Thanks to the inevitable Manhattan intrusion of a scaffolding bridge, Pure Yoga's living wall is looking kind of... well, dead.

Sustainable City Finance

Posted by nwong on October 21, 2009 - 1:16pm

Date/Time:

January 7, 2010 - 8:00am - 6:00pm

For more information and the full agenda, please visit www.nyas.org/sustainablecity.

A green economy must be environmentally and monetarily sustainable. Paying for green technologies, jobs, buildings, cars, and infrastructure will require innovations in how we see, use and exchange money and credit. A dual crisis -- of the environment and of the banking system -- provides us with a 'magic moment': to enable sustainability in cities and regions, plus provide adequate financing for those local governments to utilize new technologies and transition to a cleaner and greener urban age.

Sustainable cities are home to green consumers, triple bottom line green businesses, entrepreneurial nonprofits and government agencies. Financing for the best initiatives is delayed and inadequate. Unconnected pieces and spigots left over from the carbon-based economy are corrosive legacies, and their investment practices do not suit the sustainable city's financial needs. We must think anew about credit, money, banking, ratings and investment.

Tags: NYC, World Trade Center, Green Architechture, sustainable architecture, green design, sustainable design, green finance, sustainable finance

459 West 44th Street: Luxury Green Condos Hit Hell's Kitchen

Tue

May

by Stephen Del Percio

0 comments

Located between 9th and 10th Avenues in Hell's Kitchen, 459 West 44th Street is a green condominium conversion that offers three duplex units starting just north of $2 million apiece. It's a much higher price point than many of the boutique green condominium projects that we've been following here at gbNYC, but developer Van Velle recently profiled the project in Businesweek and provided some interesting thoughts about the role of green design features in the current real estate climate. "We recognized that, in a declining real estate market, the demand would be for value- for homes built to last," Mr. Velle said. "That's why we decided to go sustainable. We scrapped the previous plan, which sacrificed quality for quantity, and instead proposed three luxury condos constructed with sustainable products and efficient technology." Calling it a swap of quantity for quality, Mr. Velle purchased the property from a contractor that had abandoned a prior project in the middle of demolition operations at the four-story structure.

Panel to Discuss Green Construction at GreenWorks on Grove in Montclair

Wed

Apr

by Stephen Del Percio

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Just a quick post to point you to an event of interest tomorrow, Thursday, April 2, out in Montclair, New Jersey at the LEED-CS hopeful GreenWorks on Grove project which we noted here at gbNYC earlier this year. Montclair's Planning & Community Development department is sponsoring a panel discussion about green architecture and construction with the GreenWorks project team, including Paul Sionas of Sionas Architecture. The event begins at 7:00 at GreenWorks on Grove and is a quick walk from Montclair's New Jersey Transit station on Walnut Street. The panel will also include the project team from Montclair's other LEED project: Academy Square, which we've yet to profile here at gbNYC. In addition to the panel discussion, attendees will have the ability to tour the GreenWorks on Grove project. For more information, give the Montclair Planning Department a call at 973-509-4953.

GreenWorks on Grove (gbNYC)

Vista Center in Trenton: LEED Platinum Transit Oriented Development

Fri

Mar

by Stephen Del Percio

0 comments

RMJM Hillier and the Capital Real Estate Group earlier this week released additional details about a planned 25-story, 700,000-square-foot office tower in Trenton, New Jersey that will seek a LEED Platinum rating from USGBC. The city approved a site plan for the project in late 2008; the tower would rise immediately adjacent to Trenton’s train station which is serviced by both New Jersey Transit and Amtrak. RMJM’s design concept was not only to create an iconic piece of architecture for Trenton, but also to attract traffic from the train station by incorporating public space into the tower’s site plan. By keeping the tower’s profile more slender than bulky, RMJM accomodated the countours of that site plan, which will also include a number of pedestrian walkways that should improve access from the train station (which is in the final stages of a $75 million renovation) to the rest of downtown Trenton. The Vista Center will also include 14,000 square feet of ground floor retail space.

TKTS Booth Brings Green Design to Heart of Times Square

Sun

Mar

by Stephen Del Percio

1 comment

One of the many reasons why I’ve been waiting for the warm weather this year is to spend some time in Times Square on the steps of the new Perkins Eastman-designed TKTS booth in Father Duffy Square; as you probably know, TKTS provides discount tickets to both Broadway and Off-Broadway shows. I’ve walked past the booth a few times and think the firm did a tremendous job both in terms of the project’s straightforward architecture, as well as applying the Theater Development Fund’s design competition requirement that it include public space. What’s particularly noteworthy about the booth is that it includes some understated green design features which, though visible from the outside of the structure, are nevertheless integrated seamlessly into the booth itself.

Aspen Equities Offering "Seriously Green" Condos at 580 Sterling Place in Prospect Heights

Wed

Mar

by Stephen Del Percio

4 comments

Developer Seth Brown called it "a seriously green project" in an interview this week with the Brooklyn Eagle ; his company, Aspen Equities, plans to complete a 5-story, 8-unit condominium development at 580 Sterling Place in Prospect Heights sometime this summer. Although the project is not pursuing LEED or other third-party certification, it will feature a significant number of green design features: low-VOC paints and sealants, tankless gas hot water heaters, low-E windows, energy efficient kitchen and bathroom lighting, Energy Star appliances, bamboo flooring, dual flush toilets, programmable thermostats, and wind-powered common areas. Each apartment also offers private outdoor space as well as 9- or 10-foot ceiling heights and bicycle storage space.

Hoekenga House: LEED Gold in West Cape May, New Jersey

Fri

Feb

by Stephen Del Percio

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The Hoekenga House in West Cape May, New Jersey was designed by Cecil Baker + Partners Architects of Philadelphia and is pursuing a LEED Gold certification from USGBC. The 3100-square-foot home features a variety of green design features ranging from a geothermal heating and cooling system to a green roof that includes local flora and roof shingles manufactured from 85 percent recycled-content material. Gretchen Hoekenga, a college professor from Florida and former landscape architect, is developing the project and hopes to sell it at unspecified asking price to an older couple; although the home offers modern green amenities, as you can see Cecil Baker's design does strive to blend in with local Cape May architecture. Hoekenga is aiming for a 35 percent reduction in energy use over a comparable conventional house.

Green Retail in SoHo, LEED at Cooper Union, & Green Condos as Oxymorons?

Sun

Feb

by Stephen Del Percio

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MTA and Related continue discussions over deal for Hudson Yards.
Boston Properties halts plans for LEED office building on Eighth Avenue at 46th Street.
Tenants moving into Morristown, New Jersey's latest green building.
Cooper Union to offer LEED exam prep course this spring semester.
Extell files plans to build Diamond Tower as LEED-certified commercial condo on West 47th Street.
New York homeowners taking advantage of renewable energy provisions in Bailout.
Are "green condominiums"
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ML: BNIM Architects' Omega Center for Sustainable Living Seeks Platinum, Living Building Challenge Certification in Rhinebeck

Mon

Jan

by Stephen Del Percio

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The Rhinebeck, New York-based Omega Institute for Holistic Studies announced last week that it has broken ground on its Omega Center for Sustainable Living. The OCSL is aiming for a LEED Platinum rating and was designed by Kansas City-based BNIM Architects, the firm responsible for the new master plan for Greensburg, Kansas. During Greenbuild 2007, Omega won a Living Building Challenge "On the Boards Award" for the OCSL and, once completed, the Center will be the first Living Building on the East Coast. (Note that the Living Building Challenge is sponsored by the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, was introduced during Greenbuild 2006 in Denver, and BNIM has been involved with the program from its inception).