Garden of Eden

When most people think of the Queens Botanical Garden, they probably…well, wait—Queens has a botanical garden? “Yes,” says Max Joel, capital-projects coordinator. “For a long time, we’ve been a local community garden. But we’re really hoping all the environmental work we’ve been doing will bring people out.” The work he refers to can be seen at right: The new, supergreen Visitor and Administration Center, part of a $22 million, decadelong capital-improvement program, opens September 27, though you can poke around now. Here’s a more detailed look:

The building’s meant to be “an extension of the landscape,” says Joel, “connecting it to the environment visually.” To make it happen, the Garden teamed up with BKSK Architects, landscape architects Conservation Design Forum and a water system designer, Atelier Dreiseitl. Steel columns are rooted in the soil, like trees, and…

…the building’s vegetated roof actually slopes down to the ground. “It’s a public path, so you can walk from the ground level right onto the roof, and at the top, you’re still in a garden,” says Joel.

The water recycling systems, hidden inside, reuse rainwater and “gray water”—H2O left over after washing your hands. Both travel through a pipe under a constructed wetland—their nutrients absorbed by the indigenous plant life—and come out the other end purified. The rainwater is reused in a fountain. The gray water is for toilet flushing. “I’d be happy drinking it,” says Joel. “Well, not out of the bowl.”

Speaking of water, a separate geothermal system heats and cools the building. “There’s a well adjacent to the building that goes down 300 feet to the aquifer in this area,” says Joel. “The water there is always 55 degrees Fahrenheit, so we can take its heat or coolness, depending on the season, and use it.”

Back to that roof: “There are actually three distinct roofs on that building,” says Joel. “One is mostly solar panels. They can provide between 15 and 20 percent of the building’s power. Then there’s the one you can walk up. And then there’s a large canopy that gathers all the rainwater. It runs down and cascades —it looks like a waterfall and is really something to see.”—Michael Freidson

Queens Botanical Garden, 43-50 Main St, Flushing, Queens (718-886-3800, queensbotanical.org).