Brooklyn Botanic Garden Wins Major Design Prize

this week took home the Public Design Commission of the City of New York’s 2012 Award for Excellence in Design. The award recognizes the innovative redesign of two important visitor landmarks at the Garden: the Flatbush Avenue Entrance and the Terrace Café.

Designed by New York–based landscape architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, along with Architecture Research Office, the Flatbush Avenue Entrance and Terrace Café projects will join  in a major overhaul of many of the garden's buildings.

The Flatbush entrance, which according to the BBG welcomes one-third of the Garden’s 725,000 annual visitors, will give a facelift to its 1930 McKim, Mead & White brick archway. A new ticketing station will also be erected.

A new exterior café kiosk will function as a more compact and efficiently laid-out version of the current Terrace Café, situated in the same Steinhardt Conservatory courtyard.

According to the Garden, both the entrance and the café will utilize recycled materials, low-flow water fixtures and solar reflective roofs.

Both the renovated café and the new Flatbush Avenue entrance are part of the BBG’s Campaign for the Next Century, the most significant Garden renewal effort since the BBG’s founding more than a century ago. The Flatbush entrance and café designs were approved by the Design Commission in December 2011, and are expected to break ground in early 2013.