October 2009

The Brooklyn Botanic Visitor Center was one of 10 projects acknowledged for its excellence in design by the 2008 Public Design Commission. Formerly the Public Art Commission, the Public Design Commission has been conferring its awards for excellence in design since 1982. Mayor Bloomberg says “Public projects help define how New Yorkers relate to the city around them.” The visitor center is the first new structure in the Garden in 20 years. It has been designed as an extension of the landscape and defines the threshold between the city and the garden. Aspiring to earn LEED Gold Certification, the Visitor Center features sustainable design elements that include a living roof, recycled building materials, bioswales and rain gardens filled with distinctive water-loving plants to improve storm water management conditions. With the building nestled within the Garden’s berm perimeter and conceived as an inhabitable topography, the landscape design is organized around the berm’s graceful grade transitions that incorporate a series of vegetated cleansing and water collection features. Distinctive riparian plant communities have been introduced and are featured as both a new pedagogical horticultural exhibit while providing an unique landscape context for the center, adding further notoriety to the Garden’s new entrance.