Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the New York-based architectural firm, has been selected to design New York City’s (and the State’s) first Net Zero Energy school building. PS 62 will be located in Staten Island, NY on a 3.5-acre site at the intersection of Crabtree Avenue and Bloomingdale Road. The primary school will have a 444-seat, 70,000 sq-foot facility that would include Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten.
More information on this news after the break.
The Net Zero school building offer “an extraordinary opportunity to help define a new paradigm for school buildings for New York City and beyond,” says SOM Design Partner and head of the firm’s Education Lab, Roger Duffy. NYC School Construction Authoriy described its intentions for this project as a vehicle to explore new and higher levels of sustainibility in the design of Net Zero Energy buildings. In an effort to demonstrate NYC’s commitment to sustainability and energy conservation, the SCA is challenging the building code and design standards to innovate requirements that help reduce carbon emissions and improve energy expenditure.
SOM, a leader in sustainable design and net zero energy innovation, creates sustainable solutions for a wide variety of clients, including schools. Highlights of SOM’s own sustainable design work include the net zero energy strategy for Pearl River Tower in China, currently under construction, and the University Center for the New School, in New York City. SOM also offers a unique research and development collaboration with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute called the Center for Architectural Science and Ecology (CASE), which is dedicated to applying the latest scientific research to today’s sustainable design challenges. At CASE, multi-disciplinary scientists, researchers, and design professionals, work together to design, develop and implement next-generation systems within actual building projects as research test beds. SOM’s Education Lab has also built an extraordinary portfolio of higher education projects and K-12 schools – including Greenwich Academy in Greenwich, CT, Burr Street School in Fairfield, CT and others in New York City and throughout the Northeast.
With such a background and dedication to environmental concerns, we look forward to seeing what SOM will invent for New York City’s first Net Zero Energy School.
