Victoria Meyers : Invisible Buildings

Going Green in Greenwich: "The Energy Conscious Home" Green Energy Forum on April 2nd, 2011

 Victoria Meyers architect's (hMa) first project to receive national attention was the Chattanooga Nature Interpretive Center, which featured green design way ahead of its time in 1990  click here to see more of Chattanooga Nature Interpretive Center on hanrahanmeyers.com

Greenwich Connecticut is finally giving meaning to the GREEN in its name with its first energy forum: The Energy Conscious Home  www.GREENGreenwich.com on Saturday, April 2 from 10AM - 3PM at the Greenwich High School.  Victoria Meyers architect (hMa) has been invited as an expert to participate.  Ms Meyers will consult on accessible emerging technologies.

Steven Hall of Chandler www.chandlerllc.com in Greenwich and also a resident extended the invitation as a member of the program committee for the Energy Task Force. Mr. Hall will deliver the opening remarks for the event.  He will point out that every home matters. If all homes 10 years or older reduce energy use 30%, it would release more energy annually than from all the oil pumped from the Gulf of Mexico. The 30% reduction is considered a reasonable and very doable goal that significantly reduces homeowner costs, is a large cut in carbon emissions and perhaps most importantly is a big move towards U.S. energy independence. The recent events in Japan and the Middle East are exclamation points to the urgency of action.

Chandler managed the development of this “Green” home started in 1995, 5 years before the first LEED projects and 14 years before the launch of LEED for Homes.  The house uses orientation, fenestration, shading, thermal mass and a ground source heat pump system and an early incentive program as well as local materials.  A prefabricated wooden bridge (pictured below) was selected for site access over a pristine stream to avoid damage by mass grading and featured on the cover of the magazine, Bridge Builder. It was applauded by the local conservation commission and has become a local landmark click here to see more of this home on Chandlerllc.com. Mr. Hall was also responsible for retrofitting the Princeton Club in NYC to meet LEED standards.

DWiP :Digital Water Pavilion by hanrahan Meyers architects

 DWi-P: Digital Water i-Pavilion (Battery Park City Community Center) designed by Victoria Meyers architect (hMa) click here to see more photos on hanrahanmeyers.com

DWi-P is a public building conceived as four ideas:  architectonic form and structure; landscape; public art work; and as a demonstration of sustainable design.  DWi-P is a 65,000 square foot pavilion at the edge of the ballfields in Battery Park City’s North Neighborhood. DWi-P is a community center promised to the Tribeca neighborhood when NYState took over the landfill site at the tip of Manhattan with a vision of creating Battery Park City in 1979.  DWi-P is scheduled to be a Platinum LEED certified building, with a 550-foot long interactive glass wall, and a 1/4-acre Green Roof, the two principal Public Components of the building, scheduled to open October 1st in NYC. 

Site Plan: DWi-P by Victoria Meyers architect (hMa) 

Architectonic form and structure create DWi-P’s façade, a 500-foot long arc of fritted glass panels with steel columns and beams and concrete slabs, marking an edge to the Ballfields. DWi-P’s fritted glass wall is a fabricated landscape that presents digitized water as an edge between the community center and the Ballfields.  hMa principal Victoria Meyers commissioned New York sound artist Michael Schumacher to write a score about water and this was the basis for a collaborative design of a frit pattern etched on the glass as digitized water. The commission can be heard through speakers on the Ballfield Terrace or through cellphones. The community center itself will have Platinum LEED certification with several design initiatives:  black water recycling; rain water recovery for plants; grey water loop to rooftop cooling tower; UV disinfectant for pool water; high efficiency condensing boiler; UV disinfectant for pool; 35% below ASHRAE lighting use; maximum use of daylighting; glass frit pattern for Audubon Soc. bird protection; 24% below ASHRAE energy use; Ballfield Terrace (DWi-P’s roof) planted as an occupiable Green Roof with a low Albido.

DWi-P Studies: Formal/ structural study of concrete and glass wall pavilion; water beads on glass click here to see more photos of Digital Water i- Pavilion on hanrahanmeyers.com

The community center program is conceived as a series of voids behind the digital water wall for the main program spaces: the pool, the gym, and the entry hall.  Three courtyards perforate the digital water wall to make public gathering spaces. DWiP’s roof is an occupiable Green Roof, the Ballfield Terrace, with planted areas and bench seating areas for viewing the Ballfields.

DWi-P: bird's eye view from northeast:  Victoria Meyers architect (hMa)

Won Dharma Center: Recent Construction Photos

 

view from Meditation Hall porch, Won Buddhist Retreat, Victoria Meyers architect (hMa)

Guest Residences in construction, Victoria Meyers architect (hMa)

CLICK HERE TO VIEW MORE PHOTOS OF WON DHARMA CENTER ON HANRAHANMEYERS.COM

 

Meditation Hall interior under construction, Victoria Meyers architect (hMa)

view of Dining hall in construction

model view from south Victoria Meyers architect (hMa)

Victoria Meyers architect is pleased to present on-going construction photos of hMa's Won Buddhist Retreat.  The project will have a Zero-Carbon Footprint, and is also titled:  Absolute Zero, for this reason.  

hMa designed the master plan for the religious compound campus, as well as five buildings.  The site is an abated Brownfield, and will feature a solar panel farm for the production of all electrical power, five geo-thermal wells, and a central bio-mass boiler. 

We will keep you posted as the project is completed!