flexiblefullpage -
billboard - default
interstitial1 - interstitial
catfish1 - bottom
Currently Reading

Development team picked for largest Passive House project in North America

Green

Development team picked for largest Passive House project in North America

The 24-story curved building would be 70% more efficient than comparable housing in New York City.


By John Caulfield, Senior Editor | May 16, 2016

A 24-story building with 241 affordable housing units will include a charter school, medical center, cultural spaces, and a supermarket. Image: Dattner Architects

A 24-story, 300,000-sf building that is being dubbed the largest residential Passive House project in North America will rise on the former site of a public school in the Mott Haven section of The Bronx, New York.

The mixed-use, mixed-income development calls for 241 housing units for low- and moderate-income families. The first three floors of the building will include a 44,480-sf charter school, a medical facility, cultural and community space that includes a 1,350-sf social service facility, and an 11,000-sf supermarket.

The project will also rehab and reopen the nearby Garrison Playground.

The development team that the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development has selected for this project is a joint venture comprised of the real estate developer Trinity Financial, the Bronx-based nonprofit development agency MBD Community Housing Corporation, and Dattner Architects, a New York-based architectural firm that has designed more than 3,500 units for the city over the past five years.

The project is programmed to achieve Passive House certification, and is expected to use 70% less energy than a conventional housing project, and surpass Enterprise Green Communities guidelines. This will be achieved through high-efficiency building systems with an airtight envelope, energy recovery ventilation, and other features that reduce heat loss. Solar shading and water saving features, individual energy controls and energy efficient appliances will also help reduce this building’s energy consumption.

“Passive House is about energy consumption, and is the next bar we should all be targeting,” says John Woelfling, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, a Principal with Dattner Architects, which has a long history with sustainably designed projects.

Tenants will have access to a 23rd-floor landscaped roof terrace and green roof. Woelfling adds that the development team is also considering “resilient power” solutions such as solar arrays or cogeneration. (He notes, too, that Dattner has been designing into its buildings daylighting in stairwells so, in the event of a power outage, residents using the stairs still have some visibility.)

The building, which is scheduled for completion by 2020, would require a zoning change, which would then activate a new Mandatory Inclusionary Housing law that makes 25% of the building’s units permanently affordable, according to Curbed NYC.

[Editor's note: John Woelfling's comments were added to this article after its initial posting.]

The building, located in the Mott Haven section of The Bronx, N.Y., is designed to be 70% more energy efficient that other housing projects in the city. Image: Dattner Architects

 

 

Related Stories

Concrete | Aug 11, 2010

8 Innovations That Will Rock Your Next Concrete Project

If you think you've seen it all when it comes to concrete construction, then you haven't sat down with Blaine Brownell. The architect-turned-blogger-turned-author has become the industry's foremost expert in everything that is unconventional and provocative in the building products field. For the past eight years, this LEED Accredited Professional, BD+C “40 Under 40” winner, and vis...

| Aug 11, 2010

Let There Be Daylight

The new public library in Champaign, Ill., is drawing 2,100 patrons a day, up from 1,600 in 2007. The 122,600-sf facility, which opened in January 2008, certainly benefits from amenities that the old 40,000-sf library didn't have—electronic check-in and check-out, new computers, an onsite coffeehouse.

| Aug 11, 2010

BIM school, green school: California's newest high-performance school

Nestled deep in the Napa Valley, the city of American Canyon is one of a number of new communities in Northern California that have experienced tremendous growth in the last five years. Located 42 miles northeast of San Francisco, American Canyon had a population of just over 9,000 in 2000; by 2008, that figure stood at 15,276, with 28% of the population under age 18.

| Aug 11, 2010

Platinum Award: The Handmade Building

When Milwaukee's City Hall was completed in 1896, it was, at 394 feet in height, the third-tallest structure in the United States. Designed by Henry C. Koch, it was a statement of civic pride and a monument to Milwaukee's German heritage. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2005.

| Aug 11, 2010

Great Solutions: Products

14. Mod Pod A Nod to Flex Biz Designed by the British firm Tate + Hindle, the OfficePOD is a flexible office space that can be installed, well, just about anywhere, indoors or out. The self-contained modular units measure about seven feet square and are designed to serve as dedicated space for employees who work from home or other remote locations.

| Aug 11, 2010

Special Recognition: Kingswood School Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

Kingswood School is perhaps the best example of Eliel Saarinen's work in North America. Designed in 1930 by the Finnish-born architect, the building was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie Style, with wide overhanging hipped roofs, long horizontal bands of windows, decorative leaded glass doors, and asymmetrical massing of elements.

| Aug 11, 2010

The pride of Pasadena

As a shining symbol of civic pride in Los Angeles County, Pasadena City Hall stood as the stately centerpiece of Pasadena's Civic Center since 1927. To the casual observer, the rectangular edifice, designed by San Francisco Classicists John Bakewell, Jr., and Arthur Brown, Jr., appeared to be aging gracefully.

| Aug 11, 2010

Great Solutions: Technology

19. Hybrid Geothermal Technology The team at Stantec saved $800,000 in construction costs by embedding geothermal piping into the structural piles at the WestJet office complex in Calgary, Alb., rather than drilling boreholes adjacent to the building site, which is the standard approach. Regular geothermal installation would have required about 200 boreholes, each about four-inches in diameter ...

boombox1 - default
boombox2 -
native1 -

More In Category




halfpage1 -

Most Popular Content

  1. 2021 Giants 400 Report
  2. Top 150 Architecture Firms for 2019
  3. 13 projects that represent the future of affordable housing
  4. Sagrada Familia completion date pushed back due to coronavirus
  5. Top 160 Architecture Firms 2021