Governors Island, NY The New York City School Construction Authority (SCA) and the architectural firm of John Ciardullo, P.C. (JC) have completed the Marine and Science Technology (MAST) Center at the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School. The MAST Center trains high school students pursuing careers in the fields of aquaculture and the marine sciences. JC served the SCA as architect, interior designer, and structural engineer for the new center.
The project team converted a former U.S. Coast Guard support center and dormitory, known as Building 134, into an education and research facility that serves both students and researchers. The MAST Center is located at 134 Carder Rd., within Governors Island Historic District. Governors Island is a 172-acre island in Upper New York Bay, situated 800 yards from the southern tip of Manhattan Island.
SCA design manager Cleveland Morrison said, “The challenge for John Ciardullo was to effectively and efficiently convert an old existing building in a historic district to serve the current educational and future career needs of NYC’s future mariners; mission accomplished!”
“The new $3.7 million, MAST Center will allow the New York Harbor School’s students to develop ambitious aquaculture programs such as oyster farming, as well as to build and maintain vessels, train in SCUBA diving, expand marine biology coursework, and undergo ship navigation training on a ship bridge simulator,” said John Ciardullo, R.A., principal of JC.
“This project follows our design for the 2010 renovation and conversion of the former U.S. Coast Guard barracks and medical clinic on Governors Island into the current location of the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School.”
The New York Harbor School, which serves 432 students in grades 9-12, is operated by the Urban Assembly, a New York City non-profit organization that establishes schools designed to train high school students in marine sciences, vocations and trades. The Urban Assembly empowers underserved youth by providing them with the academic and life skills necessary for postsecondary success. The organization creates and supports unique, small public schools that are open to all students, scales up promising programs, and partners with hundreds of organizations in the private, public, non-profit and higher education sectors.
The New York Harbor School students learn to build and operate boats; spawn and harvest oysters; design submersible, remotely operated vehicles; conduct real-life research; and dive underwater. They also participate in the school’s on-going oyster restoration research program. The maritime programs of the Harbor School are supported through funding provided by the New York Harbor Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the condition of, and promoting access to and education about, New York Harbor.
The aquaculture program at MAST center includes an on-site oyster hatchery, operated as a part of a long-term effort to produce 10 million oysters annually to help restore the marine life ecosystem in the New York Harbor area. The hatchery is a part of the Billion Oysters Project (BOP). BOP is a long-term, large-scale plan to restore one billion live oysters to New York Harbor over the next twenty years and in the process train thousands of young people in New York City to restore the ecology and economy of their local marine environment.
JC had designed the current New York Harbor School building, formerly known as Building 550, which underwent renovation and redevelopment completed in 2010. Building 550, erected in 1940, originally served as a barracks and then as a military medical clinic.
The MAST Center occupies a 9,500 s/f, two-story, steel frame and concrete slab floor building, which is partially cantilevered on piles above the water of New York Harbor and straddles the bulkhead surrounding Governors Island. It features insulated metal panel walls and flat and pitched roofs. The U.S. Coast originally erected it in 1987.
Construction of the MAST Center included the replacement of all exterior windows to comply with SCA’s Green Schools Guide and Rating System’s energy efficiency requirements, layout revisions and renovations to interiors, and the installation of new mechanical, plumbing, and electrical (MEP) systems. “Many of the design features used in the school, such as maritime architectural elements and the interior color scheme, were incorporated into the MAST Center as well,” said JC project manager Brian Anderson. “These included porthole-type windows in doors and blue and green accents throughout the renovated interior spaces,” he continued.
The first floor houses the aquaculture classroom and laboratory with oyster hatchery tanks, a boat construction and maintenance shop with a garage door access, a new entrance lobby, and a SCUBA gear storage room. Both the first and the second floor house restrooms with lockers and showers. The oyster hatchery features water storage tanks, recirculation pumps, and heat exchangers by Pentair Aquatic Eco-Systems.
The second floor features an open space that houses a ship operation classroom with a Transas bridge simulator. The bridge simulator allows the school to provide radar, electronic chart display and information systems (ECDIS), bridge resource management, and sea time course work. New York Harbor Foundation offices are also located on the second floor. The organization helps students prepare for and finance college education, manages the Billion Oysters Project, and operates a number of other summer and after-school programs to develop students’ career preparedness and help restore the New York Harbor.
While the aquaculture lab features a poured epoxy resin floor, most of the facility is equipped with Vinyl Composite Tile (VCT) flooring. The new MEP infrastructure is highly energy efficient to increase environmental sustainability. Other upgrades included construction of a second stair and the installation of a two-story ADA lift.
The designers also had to accommodate the requirements of working within the Governors Island Historic District, which limited revisions to the exterior of the building.
DVL Consulting Engineers served as the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) engineer and Positive Electrical Associates, Inc. was the general contractor.
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