Green Design

I'm not trying to brag or anything, but my apartment building has a roof. Yeah, that's right: a roof, right on top of the building. I'll take your high-fives at the end of the post, thanks. Anyway, it's pretty much like any other roof -- keeps the weather out of the interior of the building, mostly tar paper, a few crappy pavers surrounded by planters and a strongly-worded sign from the co-op board reminding residents that leaving the paver-ed area is strictly verboten. Look, it's not a very cool building -- and don't get me started on the inefficient windows in the bedroom -- but I figure that our roof isn't appreciably less cool than most others in the city. Which means that they're less cool by a factor of a thousand than the two new demonstration roofs that recently went on display. The roofs are a collaboration between Town & Gardens landscapers and greenscreen green walls and to say that they are cooler than my roof (or probably yours) is a dramatic understatement.

Designed by architet David Kucera for himself and his wife, the 2700-square-foot Kucera House in Gardiner, New York took honorable mention in New York House magazine’s Best in Green Building Competition. Reconstructed from a vintage barn that was reassembled on site, an 8.5-kilowatt solar array and closed-loop, 285-foot deep geothermal system obviate the need for the Kuceras to draw any power off of the grid whatsoever. Both systems were installed by Hudson Valley Clean Energy.

The house was completed in August of 2007 and features extensive insulation- R26 for the walls and R40 for the roof- as well as antique hemlock flooring. The design of the house accounts for passive solar heat gain and loss; most windows are on the south side with only three small windows on the north side. The building envelope was constructed with SIPs and the house itself is Energy Star-rated. Gardiner is located about halfway between Newburgh and Kingston in Ulster County.

Another LEED project by BKSK Architects (Queens Botanical Gardens, Harsen House, and 124 West 23rd Street) just broke ground last week in Mamaroneck, New York. Designed to achieve a Silver level of certification from USGBC, the Mamaroneck Public Library renovation and expansion project will contemplate a 13,000-square-foot addition to an existing 21,000-square-foot facility, which dates from 1927. BKSK's design charge was to maintain the historic appeal of the existing structure; the Library's original reading room wiill be restored and its columns and box pattern facade details replicated. Green features are LEED-standard; energy efficient building systems, extensive daylighting, and recycled-content materials, in addition to a green roof. The project should wrap up sometime in early 2010.

Schenectady-based Price Chopper Supermarkets has broken ground in Colonie on what’s set to become New York’s first LEED-certified supermarket, just north of Albany. The 69,000-square-foot facility is scheduled to open up sometime in early 2009, and Price Chopper hopes to use the project as a template for future green supermarkets across the Northeast. A fuel cell from UTC Power will supply 60 percent of the supermarket’s electricity requirements, as well as 400 kilowatts of standby power in the event of a grid outage. The supermarket will recover heat from its refrigeration equipment and use it as space heating. Other green design features are LEED-standard, including locally-sourced construction materials and energy-efficient lighting. The company worked with NYSERDA during the design phase in order to qualify for various tax incentives from the agency under its green building programs.