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New York Botanical Garden

Edible Academy

Description

The New York Botanical Garden is a National Historic Landmark site with a multi-pronged mission—to conduct plant research, protect, preserve, and improve the garden and its collections, and to serve the community through education about the natural world, specifically horticulture and plant biology. Following through on the garden’s mission, the Edible Academy offers numerous hands-on activities for children and parents interested in learning about growing and preparing fruits and vegetables for healthy living. The increasingly popular and innovative programming demanded a new, state-of-the-art educational facility which would allow year-round operation of the Academy’s edible gardening and STEM activities.

Kohler Ronan contributed MEP/FP systems design for this building which will feature two high-tech classrooms accommodating up to 32 children and 5 chaperones each. Housed in one of the classrooms will be a demonstration kitchen, which will be central to the facility, as will the interconnected teaching greenhouse. The project will be designed to LEED Gold standards and will feature a green roof, geothermal heating and cooling, and composting restrooms. The green roof will collect storm water runoff and provide added insulation.

Kohler Ronan is commissioning and performing functional testing on the ground source heat pumps, indoor units, and lighting controls.

Details

LOCATION
ARCHITECT
SIZE
COST
COMPLETION
SUSTAINABILITY
AWARDS
Bronx, NY
Cooper Robertson & Partners
5,000 square feet
$6 million
2014 (design)
LEED Gold Certified
2014 Winner of the Excellence in Design Award; ENR New York’s Best Green Project 2018

Project Team

Rory S. Ronan
Talya Santillan
Christopher M. Vahlsing
Pearl Odu
Giuseppe Ianni