Working like under a tree is cool and refreshing. This is what SO-IL wanted to achieve. With the aim of becoming more energy efficient by 2030, designing the underused rooftop with a cool landscape is on of the projects that they are developing at the moment. The company who does the job is the Garden City Roofs. They are the ones who will convert every building’s underused roof into a showroom and knowledge center for green roof system, and SO-IL’s part is to evaluate access, layout the roof systems and hard-scapes and design a sales-and learning center. With their Client Garden City Roofs, the project is projected to be complete on spring 2009.
Project description from SO-IL :
Sunnyside Up
A roof garden in the garden city
Roofs are underused in New York City. Garden City Roofs, a startup company headed by Beth Lieberman, caters to a growing need for technical expertise and access to green roof systems. Garden City Roofs is converting the unused roof of a large industrial building into a showroom and knowledge-center for green roof systems. SO-IL has been asked to evaluate access, layout the roof systems and hard-scapes and design a sales- and learning center on the roof. The factory building, where once typewriter ribbons were made and which now houses a gym and billiards hall, is located along the train tracks in Sunnyside Gardens, Queens, opposite of the New York / Korean Presbyterian Church by Gregg Lynn.
Sunnyside (above) is known for one of America’s first planned communities, Sunnyside Gardens. Constructed from 1924 to 1929, this residential area has brick row houses of two and a half stories, with front and rear gardens and a landscaped central court shared by all. This model, based on Ebenezer Howards garden city principles, allowed for denser residential development, while also providing ample open/green-space amenities.
In this spirit, and that of one time resident Lewis Mumford’s ideas of the organic city, the project is conceived as an integral part of the natural roofscape. The idea is to create an atmosphere as if working under a tree with little division between in- and outside. The pavilions form is achieved by slicing and rotating a Truncaded Octahedron, one of the most beautiful Archimedean Solids. The structure will be a showcase of materials that are either completely biodegradable or recyclable. Climate control will be created with natural elements; rain water, sunshine and shading through trees and plants.
The idea is to create an atmosphere as if working under a tree with little division between in- and outside.
Client: Garden City Roofs
Location: Sunnyside, Queens, NYC
Date: 09/01/08
Program: Entrance, office, hard-scape Area: Exterior: 21.000 sf; Interior: 200 sf.
Budget: $40,000
Note: To be completed spring 2009.
