When you redecorate your apartment, what’s the first thing you want to do? Throw a party and show it off to the world, obvs. The same goes for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and its new 20,000-square-foot, $28 million visitor center that opened earlier this month. So to celebrate and show off its new hotness, the garden is opening its doors for free until 6pm tomorrow (6/2). You can go in and explore the new visitor center, check out the new summer exhibit Urban Garden and check out an event called Amble, which features a solar-paneled sound installation, a kids’ potting-up workshop, traditional fiddle music, guided tours and even a botanical aromatherapy workshop. And if the rains hold off, it’s supposed to be a purrrty day tomorrow too.
Curbed had this to say about the new center:
The curvy new center nestles into an existing hillside, allowing the 10,000-square-foot green roof to be adjacent to a walkway and seating area above the building.
Inside, the new center offers an interactive learning gallery, a garden shop, and a leaf-shaped 2,500-square-foot event space that looks out onto the gardens. The double-height windows have fritted glass helps block sunlight and deter bird collisions, and the wooden acoustics paneling is made from gingko trees that were harvested on the building site. The building is seeking LEED Gold certification, and besides the living roof, one of the main sustainable features is a 28-well geoexchange system that heats and cools the building using the earth’s consistent temperature.