On September 25, 2020, nARCHITECTS celebrated the opening of the Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center, a project born out of a public-private partnership spearheaded by New York State Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. This pioneering building and landscape, and the exhibition that weaves through them, educates visitors about the ways in which energy use and nature shape each other, pointing towards a carbon-neutral future for New York State.
Designed as a “chalet for all,” the building functions as a gateway to the striking natural environment of Jones Beach, while educating visitors on how they can become its stewards. In meeting the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act’s objectives almost thirty years before its targets, the building also serves as a model for sustainable architecture.
At 330 feet in length, the one-story building rises from the foundations of a 1960s bathhouse, extended on either side to accommodate the center’s educational program. To meet resiliency requirements, the building perches above the sandy ground, enhancing views of the dunes and Atlantic Ocean to its south. Future visitors may one day glimpse the vast offshore Empire Wind Project far out at sea. A newly constructed landscape of native plant species, reclaimed from 12 acres of concrete parking, ground into rubble and used as its base, embeds the building in a continuous natural environment.
Organized around a series of interior volumes that house offices, support spaces, and classrooms, exhibition space flows from gallery to gallery, spilling out into a shaded perimeter canopy and amphitheater. As an example of integration between architecture, landscape, ecology, engineering, and exhibition content, the Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center provides a public laboratory for learning about how feats of human engineering and forces of nature intertwine and overlap.
