This 33-story, 500,000 sq ft tower includes 251 condominiums as well as 4,200 sq ft of ground floor retail space. The project is the latest in a line of increasingly more energy efficient residential towers being developed in Manhattan's Battery Park City – the first being The Solaire, the first LEED Gold residential high-rise in the country, which was also engineered by Cosentini.
Innovative systems within The Visionaire include windows that are pre-wired for motorized energy-efficient solar treatments; natural-gas heating and cooling systems that contribute to a substantially lower peak demand on the city's electric grid; high-efficiency natural gas-fired heaters and a microturbine that simultaneously generate electricity and hot water; and a 25,000-gallon-per-day waste-water treatment plant in the basement that recycles water to re-supply the Toto dual-flush toilets and provide make-up water for the HVAC system's cooling tower.
The Visionaire minimizes energy use when the apartments are unoccupied by employing a lower rate of exhaust for ventilation and by using sensors and master switches to control non-essential lighting and other electric appliances. The ventilation system provides fresh air but energy is conserved by a fall-back setting. The system increases air exhaust rates in the kitchen on demand. The same strategy was used for lighting, using a master switch near the entrance that turns off the lights in the bedrooms,
living room, and hallway simultaneously when occupants leave the residence.
|
