![]() Marble Fairbanks seized every opportunity to insert details that reinforce the program: four narrow south-facing windows near the entrance each align to highlight the path of the sun on the concrete floor during an equinox or solstice. Such local wood figures prominently throughout the interior, as do select shades of green. Walking in from the street, you’ll find adult and children’s reading rooms on either side of a cherry-clad main desk. The main desk curves into a public computer station (1), flanked by adult and children’s reading rooms (2). The split levels and bold materiality also minimize the bulk of the structure so that it fits within Greenpoint’s patchwork of old and new buildings faced in wood, brick, and vinyl siding. This move, says project architect Jason Roberts, places the more durable material at the street level and contrasts it with the wood, which will age, above. The architects clad the upper volume with sandblasted-cedar panels made in the nearby Brooklyn Navy Yard, then used the same wood as formwork for glass-fiber-reinforced concrete panels on the lower volume. The massing also enabled the creation of a welcoming backlit entrance canopy beneath an overhang. Broad expanses of deep-set louvered and insulated glass span the southeast and west facades to visually connect passersby with the reading rooms, and to infuse the interior with strategically shaded daylight. Marble Fairbanks wanted to introduce public green space where there had been none and so massed the building by stacking a pair of orthogonal volumes and rotating them at right angles to establish three tiered outdoor areas: the plaza at grade, a second-level reading garden, and a rooftop horticultural classroom. ![]() Situated on a prominent corner, the 15,000-square-foot steel-and-concrete structure immediately grabs your attention with a gracious plaza. The facade’s contrasting cedar and concrete planks present a lesson in materiality, while the plaza nods to the local ecology with native plantings and granite boulders. According to firm principal Karen Fairbanks, neighborhood residents, who were frustrated with the existing outdated small, dark library branch from the 1970s, initiated the $23 million project: it was financed with $5 million from the Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund (instituted with money from ExxonMobil for the spill) and $18 million from additional city and state sources. Yet it retains much of the multi-ethnic working-class population spawned by a still-active commercial zone. After years of litigation and slow remediation, this disaster became a catalyst for the new public library, which offers a unique focus on sustainability and the local ecosystem in a building that exemplifies the principles of good stewardship.ĭespite the ongoing cleanup, Greenpoint-with its desirable location on the East River, opposite midtown Manhattan-has been gentrifying with new development. Between 17 and 30 million gallons of oil and refining products leaked from processing facilities in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and seeped deep into 55 acres of soil and aquifer in both industrial and residential areas. In 1978, one of the largest oil spills recorded in the United States (at least 50 percent greater than that of the Exxon Valdez) was discovered in a tributary of New York’s East River. Designed by Marble Fairbanks, it is a symbol of an ecological effort that dates back more than 40 years. Image via the Department of Education website.Open since October, the Greenpoint Library and Environmental Education Center is more than a repository of information. If you are interested in science related camps but the Board of Education sponsored camp you hoped for is full, check out our list of science camps. High school students successfully completing a summer program can earn up to four SUNY College credits.Īt least five of the camps will be held in Brooklyn at The Environmental Study Center (7151 Avenue T). Middle schoolers, still working with plants, venture into the cool world of hydroponics. Pre-k students work with seeds and plants while their elementary counterparts see seeds all the way to the table. The camps are broken down by age and subject matter. The New York City Board of Education is teaming up with Environmental Study Center and STEM Matters NYC to provide 17–yes 17!–new science based summer camps held throughout the city. We are featuring yet another almost free camp. ![]()
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