New York Museum Exhibits "Green" Towers
by Mairi Beautyman, Berlin, Germany on 02. 5.06
Through May, New York’s Skyscraper Museum will offer an interesting exhibit on green building design, “Green Towers for New York: From Visionary to Vernacular.” We may have more than a little difficulty believing there is anything environmentally-friendly about a skyscraper…..but the show will give an insider’s view of high-profile corporate headquarters, such as The New York Times Building (shown here), The Hearst Tower, and One Bryant Park, in addition to lower-profile, innovative residential projects designed to high-performance "green" standards. It might just be interesting to take a look at all the architectural models, renderings, computer simulations, building material samples on view, plus, starting February 7, the museum will also hold several lectures in conjunction with the show. The lectures will tackle questions like "Is New York ready to go green on a big scale?" and "What are the mechanisms that support sustainability in a market-driven model?," and address topics including Green Ground Zero: Guidelines for Downtown and Beyond and Battery Park City: Green through Government. The latter will discuss the mandatory green guidelines for new residential towers issued be the Battery Park City Authority. :: The Skyscraper Museum
"We may have more than a little difficulty believing there is anything environmentally friendly about a skyscraper"
ask Ken Yeang that
Yeah the skyscraper comment is such a strange one! Not environmentally friendly as opposed to what? A sprawling 2 story office park that requires highways and cars to get to? In general multi-story buildings are more environmentally friendly and efficient than shorter structures. If the builders employ other green techniques all the better. Here's another one -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_America_Tower,_New_York_City#Environmental_advantages
"We may have more than a little difficulty believing there is anything environmentally-friendly about a skyscraper…"
This comment baffled me! Tall buildings reduce the human footprint, and with Habitation Loss being one of the primary threats to many animal populations, re-densifying the urban center and halting sprawl seems like it should be a primary concern of any ecologically minded person.
A skyscraper's height also makes it particularly suitable for several passive heating and cooling strategies such as Stack Ventilation.
For a good example of the potential of the skyscraper, look into the European Central Bank by Coop+Himmelblau.
yeah helio99000 that building is the "One Bryant Park" that Mairi wrote about (every article about this show talks about 1Bryant and the Solaire), but also more green skyscrapers, how about the CIS Bld (ok 13 stories in't a skyscraper.. but then again its gotta count-- has PVsolar on 3 sides and wind turbines on the roof!)
and while this one certainly isn't a green building-- it did work with an esco and cut its electricity bill by $1.4Million a year.
There are economies of scale at play here, and with 6.? Billion of us, it certainly seems better to be living in evolved stacks and towers than in sprawl
I'll pile on with skyscraper defense. Skyscrapers can be energy inneficient, but unlike sprawling office parks or single-family detached housing, they are not inherently so.
As others mentioned, they are far more efficient land users, and if part of a city encourage the use of public transport.
Even the greenest single-family home uses more habitat and requires more energy for transport and infrastructure construction than a carelessly designed apartment. Not to mention a well-designed one.
Not everybody should live in a city center apartment, but by all means density is good. It may look unnatural, and is, but density in one place means other places have less or no human footprint.