State-Of-The-Art Environmental Education Center

Image Courtesy of NYCEDC

The Solar One Environmental Center Consists of Two-Story Learning Center for Flexible Classrooms, Lectures, Educational Programming, Community Functions, Office Use, and Other Community Opportunities

With Community Benefits at the Forefront, New Facility will Expand Solar One’s Teaching and Demonstration of Environmental Stewardship—Driving Growth and Opportunity in New York’s Green Workforce

Built Utilizing Sustainable Materials, Climate Technology, and Flood Protection, the Center Will be a Model for Coastal Resiliency and Immersive Learning, and the First Ground-Up Solar and Battery Storage Building in NYC

The new state-of-the-art Solar One Environmental Education Center Located at the north waterfront end of the Stuyvesant Cove public open space, adjacent to the East River, the new center will serve as a model for future urban coastal resiliency, while also creating an immersive, hands-on environmental learning experience for New Yorkers of all ages.

This new two-story, 6,400 square feet facility includes classrooms that will be used for STEM education classes, community functions, workshops, and other opportunities. Additionally, Solar One will provide expanded experiences for learning about sustainability, climate change, and resiliency with hands-on activities and demonstrations. With advanced sustainable building engineering and design components such as solar energy generation, battery storage, and flood resistance, the “Center” is a model of resiliency for hurricanes, storm surges, and other potential severe weather conditions.

The center will be an education destination for thousands of New Yorkers, including NYC Public School students, by providing a space for Solar One’s K-12 STEM education and field trips as an extension of our in-school programming, while also delivering professional development to teachers to incorporate climate change curriculum into STEM classes, serve as a site for job fairs, community events, workshops, and other opportunities.

True to its name, the Solar One Environmental Education Center features advanced sustainable building engineering and design components—some key design highlights include:

• A photovoltaic (PV) solar panels roof array and critical modern-day flood protection. The tilted design of the roof optimizes the solar panel orientation, becoming a learning tool for educational programs on resiliency and sustainability held in the space.
• Use of eco-conscious and recyclable materials, including plywood sheathing and timber siding sourced from Forest Stewardship Council-certified forests in North America, thermally modified to enhance longevity, stability, and insect resistance.
• The construction also utilized a minimal amount of concrete, only placing it structurally below the flood elevation level before transitioning to light weight steel framing as it rises.
• Energy storage will enable the building to be fully resilient. The building will generate energy via a 21kW solar array with battery storage alongside FDR Drive, allowing the building to provide power to nearby New Yorkers in the event of power outages.
• The classrooms seamlessly connect to the Stuyvesant Cove public open space and promenade of connected terraces and gardens, creating an immersive, real-world learning experience right at the edge of the East River.

About NYCEDC
New York City Economic Development Corporation is a mission-driven, nonprofit organization that works for a vibrant, inclusive, and globally competitive economy for all New Yorkers. We take a comprehensive approach, through four main strategies: strengthen confidence in NYC as a great place to do business; grow innovative sectors with a focus on equity; build neighborhoods as places to live, learn, work, and play; and deliver sustainable infrastructure for communities and the city’s future economy. To learn more about what we do, visit us on Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

About Solar One
Solar One is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization whose mission is to design and deliver innovative education, training, and technical assistance that fosters sustainability and resiliency in diverse urban environments with a focus on underserved communities Solar One facilitates learning that changes the way people think about energy, sustainability, and resilience by engaging diverse program participants across NYC boroughs. Programs help individuals and communities explore new ways of living and working that are more adaptive to a climate-change impacted world.

About BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group
BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group is a Copenhagen, New York, London, Barcelona, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Zurich, Bhutan, and Oslo-based group of architects, designers, urbanists, landscape professionals, interior and product designers, researchers, and inventors. Led by Bjarke Ingels, the studio is currently involved in projects throughout Europe, the Americas, Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East—including the East Side Coastal Resiliency project in New York City, a 2.5-mile coastal protection initiative that is designed to protect and improve the resiliency of more than 110,000 New Yorkers. BIG’s architecture emerges out of a careful analysis of how contemporary life constantly evolves and changes. The firm believes that by hitting the fertile overlap between pragmatic and utopia, architects can find the freedom to change the surface of our planet to better fit contemporary life forms.