Sustainable Sites Initiative

Photographer Jeff Goldberg
Copyright notice © Jeff Goldberg/Esto

Queens Botanical Garden Visitor and Administration Center Building and Landscape

Size & Type of Project:
Approx. 4 acres of a 35 acre Public Botanical Garden

Location:
Flushing, New York

Budget:
$14 Million

Project Phase:

Completed in 2007

Project Overview

Consistent with the vision and philosophy of Queens Botanical Garden (QBG), the decision was made to develop a high performance green facility that would serve to demonstrate sustainable solutions to a broad audience. The QBG redevelopment project consists of a new Visitor and Administration Center building (certified LEED Platinum), ornamental water features and display gardens in a dense urban setting.   

The primary theme of the site design is the visible expression of water. Water is present in every portion of the renovated gardens, and draws visitors in and through the various garden spaces. The process mimics the natural hydrology of the site, which originally contained low-lying streambeds that were tributaries of the Flushing River. All of the rainwater that falls upon the site is received as a resource, collected, cooled, cleansed, and re-circulated for multiple benefits, thus eliminating the notion of "stormwater." An array of green strategies work in harmony as a system to manage rainwater on-site, rather than allowing it to become surface runoff and enter the city's overburdened combined sewer and wastewater systems, thus reducing pollution in the Long Island Sound. All water is treated with natural systems and maintained without any chemicals. Ornamental pools, channels, and fountains are kept full with harvested rainwater stored in a cistern; no potable water is used, and surplus rainwater is absorbed in rain gardens and bioswales. The vast majority of rainfall is kept entirely on-site, and overflows into the city storm sewer systems only in the heaviest of rain events. The project vividly illustrates the benefits of having close connections among landscape, building and systems. The project's greatest strengths are showing that environmental initiatives can generate aesthetic richness, and act as a living museum for visitors and employees. 

Site Context

Queens is home to about a thousand native plants and a rich diversity of ecosystems. Saltwater marshes, freshwater wetlands, prairie, and upland pine woodlands once thrived within a very short distance of the site, and a few remnants still remain. Queens has a humid sub-tropical climate. The temperature range is fairly mild, generally averaging from the low 30's in winter to low 80's in summer (degrees Fahrenheit), although it can go well above and below at times. Average annual rainfall is around 46 inches, fairly well distributed throughout the year, although Queens' climate is strongly influenced by the Atlantic Ocean and is subject to severe hurricanes and coastal storms.

The site for Queens Botanical Garden is approximately 4 acres of a 35-acre botanical garden in downtown Flushing, a dense urban setting in New York City's Queens Borough. Queens is the second most densely populated borough in New York, and the most ethnically diverse county in the nation, with a larger Chinese population than Manhattan's Chinatown. Nearly half of its 2.2 million residents are immigrants, and 165 tongues are spoken as first languages. The site has a long history of various uses as part of the Corona corridor. It was used as a borrow-and-fill site for the construction of two world fairs. Portions of the site were contaminated and remediated, and therefore qualifies it as a brownfield site. Nothing remains of the site's original soil structure; it is now comprised entirely of fill material (construction debris, fly ash, and other materials brought to the site over a period of about 80 years) covered with about six feet of imported soil.

Photographer Jeff Goldberg
Copyright notice © Jeff Goldberg/Esto

Sustainable Practices

Community Involvement:  Nearby local residents consider the botanical garden an extension of their own backyard. They visit regularly, using the grounds to practice Tai Chi, walk, or to enjoy a picnic lunch. So before beginning the design process, administrators held a series of public workshops to gather input from the community. While these sessions were conducted in English, a series of hands-on activities and participation by several translators helped to bridge the language barriers with a diverse group of resident stakeholders. A strong desire for a scheme that prominently featured water emerged as a priority from these sessions. Though the residents were primarily interested in water's aesthetic benefits and its cultural associations, their wishes nevertheless dovetailed with QBG's mission to demonstrate environmental stewardship, promote sustainability, and celebrate the rich cultural connections between people and plants. For the project team, water quickly became the overarching design principle.

Rainwater (stormwater) treatment and re-use:  

• Rainwater (stormwater) management: All rainwater is managed on-site. The Visitor and Administration Center building has a green roof over half of its surface, and the remainder of the roof surfaces are designed for rainwater harvesting. Paved vehicular surfaces are made of gravel to slow and filter rainwater. Paved pedestrian walkways and paths are directed to a "cleansing biotope," a type of constructed stormwater wetland element, as is surplus rainwater from the rainwater harvesting system. As water moves through the system, it is cooled and cleansed with vegetation and gravel substrate engineered into the landscape features. Clean water is then taken from the cleansing biotope and stored in a cistern for make-up water for the ornamental fountain, channels, and pools. Overflow water is directed to a large rain garden, where most of it is evapotranspired and/or infiltrated into the ground. If the entire system is saturated and the basins are full, water will then overflow into a city stormwater inlet in the street, which occurs only in the most severe rainfall events.
• Rainwater harvesting and re-use: Rainwater is collected and re-used to create an inspiring garden experience. A circular cascading fountain feeds a water channel that moves through the administration building into a naturalistic outdoor cleansing biotope, replete with grasses and flowering perennials. A lightweight green roof system creates a seamless garden transition from ground level to roof top and is an integral part of the rainwater system.
• Graywater re-use: Water from the Visitor & Administration Center's sinks, dishwashers, and shower is piped to a constructed wetland, which is part of the garden landscape. The water is filtered and treated naturally through bacterial activity on the roots of carefully selected plants. The treated graywater is returned to the building for use in toilet flushing.

Native and adapted vegetation: Vegetation was chosen to support the necessary water functions of the various garden spaces in a naturalistic, ornamental planting approach. Species representing more than 15 plant families were chosen and matched to the range of water regimes and sun/shade characteristics of the space. Herbaceous grasses and forbs either native to New York or closely related cultivars make up the majority of the plants, and will thrive once established without supplemental irrigation. The auditorium's planted green roof is planted with native species, such as little bluestem grass, prairie dropseed, and mayapple.
Some plantings are experimental in nature and will be monitored to determine their performance and appropriateness for a naturalistic garden setting. Planting considerations prioritized use of existing assets and restoration of healthy habitat. Preservation of existing trees was of the highest priority, as the mature Willow Oaks, Pin Oaks and Conifers are irreplaceable in several generations' time.

Minimize grading and tree protection: The building and infrastructure are nestled into a site replete with mature trees. Virtually all of the largest trees were incorporated as amenities into the site plan; great care was taken to preserve the majority of the root zone of these trees. Although no original soil structure or characteristics were present anywhere on the site, grading and topographic reshaping were minimized to the extent possible while still achieving the surface contours necessary for the rainwater system to function effectively.

Soil restoration: The soil had no original structure remaining, and consisted largely of a range of construction materials and other debris of unknown origin. Restoration of soil health and water retention capacity was part of the method used to ensure a living, functioning system. Specific soil mixes were specified for all of the planted surfaces, and the substrate of all of the rainwater elements. Suitable topsoil was imported for the vegetated surfaces, and amended with mushroom compost to ensure adequate nutrients for initial plant establishment and growth. The rain gardens are lined with amended soil blended to be very porous; it includes topsoil, sand, and compost materials.

Social Benefits - Connection to nature: The water creates a path that draws visitors into and through the various garden spaces. These features are brought next to and through the building so that one simply cannot avoid the experience of water whether they are working at or visiting the gardens.

Educational Benefit: QBG staff incorporated the various water conservation and re-use strategies into the garden's educational programming. The features are explained on touch screens in the building's lobby in English, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish. These information panels also illustrate how the ground-source heat pump heats and cools the building. In addition, they show how much electricity a 16-kW photovoltaic (PV) system is generating in real time. The designers estimate that the PVs will satisfy about 20 percent of the facility's annual power demand, which has been minimized. The facility requires less energy than a typical similar situation through integrated green practices for the building, and minimal energy needs for the exterior gardens, which entails mostly water recirculation and nominal lighting.

Local Materials and Certified Wood: The project's environmentally sensitive strategies also encompass material selection. Locally harvested (Long Island) and milled black locust used for the decks of the bridges crossing the water channel, along with the western red-cedar cladding, are certified to the standards of the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC).

Construction Cost

N/A

Monitoring Information

The Visitor and Administration Center and gardens are meant to serve as a green demonstration for a wide audience. QBG is undertaking a range of monitoring and measurement of the systems in order to further that purpose. They are currently installing monitoring equipment on the green roof. The equipment monitors soil moisture, ambient air temperature, plant surface temperature and growing medium temperature at 3" depth at one point on the upper green roof area and one point at the lower green roof area. The downstream edge of the green roof has a piezometer to capture water traveling through the green roof, before it leaves the green roof. Equipment on an adjacent non-green roof area has a rain gauge and collects data on surface temperature of a white roof and black roof sample, each one meter square. The green roof also hosts weather monitoring equipment (barometric pressure, air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction and solar irradiance). The data from this monitoring will help to quantify the practical energy, longevity, climatic, and ecological attributes of the green roof, which can then be translated to other applications in New York, thus promoting the more widespread use of green roof systems. The QBG plans to implement similar monitoring of some of the other water elements as well.

Maintenance

The landscape contractor will maintain the plant installation (including the green roof) for two years as part of the specification warranty requirement. After those two years, the QBG staff will take over maintenance of the plant installations and roll this task into their overall maintenance schedule. The plan anticipates a low-input maintenance regime. The plants are selected for drought tolerance, and will not require supplemental irrigation once fully established. QBG employs both staff and volunteer labor for weeding; no herbicides or chemical applications are used. The native gardens are planned to thrive with annual controlled burning as a preferred method to remove the dormant stalks and seed heads (along with many other benefits). Although prescription burning is not currently permitted, QBG is exploring ways to introduce this practice back to the area.

©Designed by Conservation Design Forum, Elmhurst, IL www.cdfinc.com

Issues/Constraints of the Site

• The project had to address the need to maintain public access and full operations during the entire period of construction.
• The critical aspects of the plan, schedule, and the impact on operations had to be communicated in multiple languages in order to garner neighborhood support and participation.

Lessons Learned

• Though the success of the QBG project depended on tight integration of its systems, the city's procurement policies stipulate a competitive bidding process and separate mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and general construction contracts held directly by the owner. Much of the project team's efforts were focused on carefully outlining the responsibilities of each trade in the contract documents. Close coordination between all of the disciplines throughout the process was essential to achieving the highest quality and best value.
• As with many green demonstration projects, many of the techniques and materials had not been built before in this area. Many prices came in higher than expected, and prices for certain items escalated during the time between preliminary design and final construction. Close coordination between the project cost estimator, local suppliers and contractors, the design team, and the client was an essential part of the process. It is best to be conservative with cost estimates for green projects that are among the first in their geographic area.
• A number of the elements had not been done or permitted before. Long lead time and regular early dialogue with regulatory authorities is a valuable part of the process. 

More project details

http://www.queensbotanical.org/103498/sustainable?o121454

Project Consultants

Principal Landscape Architect:
David J. Yocca, RLA, AICP, LEED AP
Senior Partner
Conservation Design Forum

Project Manager for Conservation Design Forum:
Marcus de la fluer
Senior Associate
Conservation Design Forum

Principal Architect:
Joan Krevlin, AIA
Partner
BKSK Architects

Additional Project Architect with BKSK:
Julie Nelson, AIA, LEED AP
Associate Partner
BKSK Architects

Project Manager for BKSK:
Paul Capece, AIA
Associate
BKSK Architects

Landscape Architect, Water System Designer and Engineer:
Herbert Dreiseitl
Owner
Atelier Dreiseitl

Project Engineer and Manager for Atelier Dreiseitl:
Gerhard Hauber
Principal
Atelier Dreiseitl

Staff Landscape Architect:
Jennifer Ward Souder
Director of Capital Projects/Assistant Director
Queens Botanical Garden

Design Project Manager:
Jeremy Lockard
New York City Department of Design and Construction