zellnerplus: solar field house

solar field house by zellnerplus

american firm zellnerplus were awarded 2nd prize for the fort tilden field house located on a former military site in new york.

salt fields and salt pyramids the architects see this project as instrument for the exploration of the nebulous edge between what is nominally termed landscape urbanism and a more economical means of strategically managing resources by providing a viable, if unusual, means of designing a land-machine for ecological conservation. our land-machine consists of a series of ocean water intake and irrigation channels, beachwells, water tables or ponds and artificially assembled sand dunes. the scheme proposes a series of desalination fields powered by a vast solar field mounted on an approximately 225,000 square foot canopy. the energy source, would be renewable thereby eliminating harmful greenhouse gas emissions. salt gathered from the desalination process would be stored on the site in the form of a series of pyramidal land forms, available for distribution to greater new york and the eastern seaboard during the de-icing season, thereby replacing mined salt sources.

field house = solar field canopy

their proposal envisions a mat-like structure supporting a 225,000 square foot solar canopy. this flying carpet like structure rises above the ground plane to a height of eighty feet over the proposed playing fields. the flying mat-structure, which is approximately twenty feet thick across its surface, is fully inhabitable. it contains a gymnasium, private viewing boxes for the stadium, a sports bar and restaurant, a café, meeting rooms, locker rooms, an observation deck, a sports lounge and suspending seating above the tennis and basketball courts which are embedded in two 20,000 square foot legs that hold up the entire mat-structure.

our architectural and urban landscape strategies aim to move this site from its current status as somewhat peripheral to being something akin to an ecological framework that will help focus and amplify the site’s public role within long island and greater new york’s urban fabric. no longer relegated to its status as an a decommissioned military installation, we imagine a renewed role for fort tilden as productive landscape- one that is opened and activated by its sports and desalination fields. – zellnerplus

aerial view

the structure of the house

floor plan