Small-Scale Conversion Project Has Big Ambitions
BOERUM HILL — R&E Brooklyn, a Boerum Hill-based development group, is building a small-scale project with big ambitions.
The project, at Nevins and Pacific Streets in Boerum Hill, aspires to set a new standard for green building in Brownstone Brooklyn, according to Emily Fisher, one-half the partnership at R&E that includes Rolf Grimsted.
Grimsted and Fisher, who live only half a block away said they like to walk to work.
“And there’s something very satisfying about making a difference in your own community,” said Grimsted, adding that they were assisted in the design by architect Tony Daniels, formerly of Kiss + Cathcart, and now director of sustainable design at Studio A Architecture in Manhattan.
Daniels, who lives in Fort Greene and recently served as a lead architect on the New York City Transit Authority’s Stillwell Avenue Terminal at Coney Island while at Kiss + Cathcart, said, “The best buildings not only take what the world gives them, but give back to the world around them.
“This project is an opportunity for us to make a new landmark while preserving an old one,” he said. “We’re going to apply both cutting edge technology like photovoltaic panels and age-old sustainable design strategies like natural daylighting and ventilation.”
The building will consist of two side by side four-story condominiums, with separate entrances and addresses: 453 Pacific and 93 Nevins.
Plans call for the preservation of the existing, condemned two-story brick building with its 1920s brick façade.
“Preservation is an important part of green design,” said Daniels. “Why destroy something that can be adapted to meet new needs and will contribute to the building’s insulation?”
Plans also call for two additional stories to be added atop the existing building, with setbacks to allow landscaped, bluestone terraces and a roofdeck featuring photovoltaic panels. The panels, which take advantage of the building’s exposure to abundant sunlight, will provide electricity for a substantial portion of the building’s electric needs and provide free heat for hot water, according to Daniels.
“Energy efficiency will be a hallmark of the building’s heating and cooling systems,” said Fisher.
Additionally, the building’s construction will rely on recycled, sustainably harvested and local materials like recycled flooring, cork, wheatboard, bluestone and slate.
Also important will be the choice of non-toxic alternatives to chemicals commonly used in construction, such as the use of water-based rather than oil-based polyurethanes.
“The renovated building is going to incorporate what’s already there and build on it,” said Fisher. “It’s a sort of marriage of restoration and new construction and the old rhyme seems to apply: ‘something old and something new, something borrowed and something blue.’ We see this project as potentially emblematic of what we would like to see in the new Brooklyn.”
Adds Grimsted, “Green architecture and building design has an idealistic component, definitely. But we’re also planning on marketing the green design as an appeal to common sense. The choices we’re making now will result in homes that are healthier, more sustainable, and more cost efficient.”
R&E has used green principles in previous projects, but this is their “greenest” project yet.
North Fork Bank will finance this project. According to Fisher, at the closing on the property, which took place after two years in negotiations, a representative of North Fork commented on the increasing importance of energy efficiency in the light of recent hikes in oil prices.
© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2005
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