Queens Botanical Garden Visitor and Administration Center

Overview

Created as part of the 1939 New York World's Fair, the Queens Botanical Garden is a 39-acre development with several gardens, an art gallery and an arboretum. The Garden provides educational programs that celebrate plants, people and cultures from around the world.

We provided structural design and civil engineering to BKSK Architects for a two-story, 15,000-square-foot visitor and administration building, horticulture and maintenance facility.

Highlights

• Our civil engineering services included site layout, circulation plan, materials, paving, grading and storm drainage. The building was an original participant in the NYCDDC’s High Performance Building initiative and part of the Garden’s master plan.The building has a large canopied multi-functional forecourt leading to a green-roofed public auditorium. The sloping auditorium roof, which serves as a ramp to the second story, has a planted surface that provides thermal insulation and acts as an acoustic buffer.
• The elongated administrative wing fosters daylighting and cross-ventilation. Its roof surface of photovoltaic cells collects solar energy, offsetting some of the building’s energy use.
• The landscaping design features rainwater collection, a cleansing biotope (system of water-purifying plants), and a constructed wetland. Bioswales throughout the site, together with the roofs and landscaping, constitute the stormwater management system. Parking surfaces are of permeable materials for direct infiltration of rainwater.