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.
