The new 220,000-sf Brooklyn (N.Y.) District 3 Sanitation Garage and Offices project features extensive daylighting and impressive sustainability features.
Replacing an aging, undersized garage, the building houses the district’s full fleet—68 vehicles, including collection trucks and street sweepers—along with repair facilities, offices, and space for 120 workers.
Grounded in community engagement and sustainability, the design responds to the surrounding Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. Extensive glazing along Nostrand Avenue gives the building physical transparency, letting the community see into the garage while bringing daylight deep into the workspace. Vehicle traffic is routed to a side street, pulling congestion off Nostrand Avenue, one of the borough’s primary thoroughfares, and away from residential zoning.
The garage is topped with a 46,000-sf green roof with native plant species that protects the roof membrane, reduces the heat-island effect, enhances storm water retention and thermal performance, promotes biodiversity, and softens the view from surrounding buildings.
Additional sustainability elements include a photovoltaic canopy covering the rooftop mechanical equipment; solar sunshades at the south façade to reduce direct sunlight, limiting solar heat gain within the garage while allowing in abundant natural light; and a rainwater harvesting system supplying fixtures and the truck wash. The garage also has a robust infrastructure for electrical vehicles: chargers, spaces, and modifications to the electrical service. That infrastructure supports the department’s cars and other small vehicles. Solar panels generate about 10% of the building’s energy.