Event Description

Join NESEA for the final Pro Tour of 2024: a passive house-certified, 185,000 square-foot building, providing 160 units of much-needed affordable housing to the neighborhood of Brownsville, Brooklyn.

Event hosts Bright Power is excited to share this project with the NESEA community, as they hope it will serve as a replicable example of how to approach housing disparities and promote sustainability in Central Brooklyn. The event will begin with an opening workshop where the project team will discuss the history, goals and design and construction and strategies behind this project. Attendees will then break into small groups to hear more from the interdisciplinary team of experts who made the building possible. After the tour, we’ll regroup for a reception and Q&A.

More About the Project:

This 7-story, 160-unit Phius+ 2015 residential project includes two buildings joined by a lobby. The lobby level includes shared spaces including coworking space, a fitness center, and community rooms, in addition to the outdoor spaces, such as vegetated courtyards, provided for residents.

The building provides its low-income population with verified thermal comfort, superior air quality, and deep energy savings through a highly efficient envelope and mechanical systems, supplemented by on-site generation technology via the 100 kW rooftop photovoltaic array. The building was designed to ensure efficient temperature regulation throughout the year to promote passive resiliency while operating at a low heating and cooling demand.

The team prioritized a highly insulated envelope to ensure the VRF heating and cooling systems provide maximum comfort as building air leakage has been nearly eliminated, combined with ERVs to provide large amounts of fresh air to the apartments and common areas, with minimal heating or cooling energy loss.

This project benefitted from NYSERDA support in pursuit of its goals to incorporate such high efficiency standards into an affordable housing project.