Ground broken for New York City’s first net zero energy school building
Ground has been broken for the P.S. 62 Richmond, Staten Island, New York’s first net zero energy school building, which is designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) architectural practice.
Sprawling over 3.5 acre of land, the 444-seat primary school is located at the intersection of Crabtree Avenue and Bloomingdale Road in Richmond, Staten Island, US. To help define the next generation of energy-efficient school buildings for New York City and beyond, the new energy-efficient primary school will harvest as much energy from renewable on-site sources, as it will use on an annual basis.
The school building has been designed to optimise the orientation and massing of the courtyard-shaped building to take advantage of the sunlight and photovoltaic arrays on the roof and south façade. The design by SOM will offer an energy-use reduction of 50% over a SCA standard public school.
Other sustainable and low-energy features incorporated in the design of the school building include an ultra-tight high-performance building envelope, daylit offset corridors, energy-efficient lighting fixtures, and low-energy kitchen equipment.
In addition to that, the energy-efficient school building also features a greenhouse and vegetable garden, a geo-exchange system, energy recovery ventilators and demand-control ventilation, and a solar thermal system for hot water.
The net zero energy school building P.S. 62 Richmond will be ready for use by Fall 2015.
