Brooklyn watches children's museum rise

Residents in the heart of Crown Heights are watching Rafael Vinoly's Brooklyn Children's Museum renovation take shape one stud at a time. So far the L-shaped steel frame has been constructed and the concrete has firmly set.

The $62 million project - to be completed in late 2007 - is also the city's first green museum is the "first museum designed especially for children." There will be 300 foot deep geothermal wells (for heating and cooling), photovoltaic panels (for electricity), carbon dioxide and body heat sensors (for monitoring exhibition spaces) and renewable materials like cork, rubber, recycled carpet and bamboo.

While the bold yellow exterior may not blend with the area's brownstones and Victorian homes, the century-old museum's facelift as a model for coexisting with neighbours may work and will have to work if it is to survive. With second-floor porthole windows and plenty of street-level glass, the outward-looking design gives Jane Jacobs' "eyes on the street" a renewed relevance.
And the Brooklyn Children's Museum is open during its renovations. The museum is on the corner of St. Marks Avenue and Brooklyn Avenue, and tomorrow, the Green Dollhouse exhibit opens - "Dollhouses created by professional architects and design students feature “green” architecture in miniature scale."