Sustainable Park Design

86 Kent Ave

The community building of Bushwick Inlet Park, which is the park’s district headquarters, was designed by Kiss + Cathcart to achieve the highest possible environmental performance standards. It has a highly efficient heating-cooling system that uses geothermal wells, ground source heat pumps and radiant floors to dramatically reduce energy consumption.

The innovative, 15,500 square foot multi-use building has a green roof planted with grass. The irrigation to the green roof comes entirely from rainfall and reclaimed water, and creates zero stormwater discharge to the combined sewer outflow.

The top of the building also has a shade structure composed of photovoltaic cells that provide a 66-kilowatt array of solar energy power to the building, which will supply half of the building’s annual usage.

To minimize the use of fertilizers and to cut down on water usage the multipurpose field is made of artificial turf. Additionally, rainwater is recycled throughout the park. Native plant pollinator gardens also serve as bioswales to help mitigate stormwater which works to ease the burden on the City’s combined sewer system.

Reference Wikipedia, NYC Parks Dept

50 Kent Ave

This newly opened passive section of the park provides vast planted beds that are growing native pollinating plant and shrub species. Some of these areas also exist as bioswales. A myriad of native tree species planted throughout this area help sustain birds by providing fruit and habitat for insects which both provide food for migrating and local avian creatures.

Bushwick Inlet

Prior to the industrial era Bushwick Inlet was thriving with fresh bivalve species such as oysters. Overharvesting and pollution decimated their existence. FBIP is supporting and collaborating on the bold initiative of the Billion Oyster Project to reestablish oysters in Bushwick Inlet (as a part of their entire New York Harbor project), along with the New York Harbor School, the North Brooklyn Community Boat House and Newtown Creek Alliance. One oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water in one day. Imagine what a billion of these creatures could achieve through the entire harbor. The Bushwick Inlet site contains about a dozen research cages that are being monitored through periodic FBIP onsite survey programming. A vision here is to evolve this site into a full oyster reef.