Historic Preservation

St. John's Bread and Life Soup Kitchen is First in Country to Implement Green Design

Tue

Oct

Over the weekend, St. John's Bread and Life's new 22,000-square-foot soup kitchen in Bedford-Stuyvesant was featured during the seventh annual openhousenewyork, an event that provides free public access to New York City buildings and spaces of design and/or historical merit. The soup kitchen's new home, which is actually located in a former warehouse, is located at 795 Lexington Avenue in Brooklyn and was completed in 2008 after a $5 million, 10-month renovation that was designed by Rogers Marvel Architects. RMA's design accommodated a tight budget by reorganizing the factory building's interior and connecting individual programming spaces; the Manhattan-based firm earned a 2009 Award of Excellence for the project from AIA's New York chapter. Although it does not appear to be seeking LEED or other third-party certification, the soup kitchen does incorporate various green design features, including a recycling program, natural daylighting, and an efficient industrial-strength kitchen.

Barton Group Headquarters: LEED Platinum 105 in Glens Falls

Thu

Feb

by Stephen Del Percio

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The Barton Group's corporate headquarters in Glens Falls, New York is only the seventh building in New York State to earn a LEED Platinum rating from USGBC (and just the 105th in the entire country). The project scope contemplated the renovation of Six Warren Street, a three-story, 16,000-square-foot brick building in downtown Glens Falls that dates from 1865. Design-builder Bette & Cring completed the project in August of 2007 and Barton earned formal certification back in January. The project should boost the building's energy efficiency to 49 percent over New York State building code requirements and will source 100 percent of its electricity needs from wind power sources.

Princeton Engineers Craft Green Design for Historic Factory in Hamilton, New Jersey

Tue

Jan

by Stephen Del Percio

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Isles, Inc. is a Trenton-based non-profit organization that develops green homes and businesses, provides training for green collar jobs, and administers various environmental clean up projects across the state of New Jersey. Isles was founded by Princeton students back in 1981 and has since expanded to over 60 employees across 5 locations in the Garden State. A current group of Princeton civil and environmental engineering students - in cooperation with their professor, Robert Harris, head of New Jersey-based green consultants Environ, Inc. - are providing recommendations to Isles and their architects, Croxton Collaborative, on ways the company can green its future headquarters, an abandoned factory in Hamilton, New Jersey, that dates from 1895. The factory was partially donated to Isles, which hopes to ultimately accomodate up to 300 employees in the new space, as well as incorporate artist studios and a mix of market-rate and affordable residential units into the development. The image here presents the property in its current condition.