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Pvilion and La Plaza Cultural De Armando Perez Community Garden Create Solar Pavilion To Serve Community

August 1, 2023 | Julia Fowler

The solar pavilion will serve visitors of the garden on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

NEW YORK – Aug. 4, 2023 – Daily Tech Geek — Pvilion, a Brooklyn-based solar fabric company, has designed, engineered, fabricated, and installed a custom solar powered fabric pavilion with rainwater harvesting systems in the La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez Community Garden on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The system encompasses energy storage systems, a device charging station, power for lights and equipment for live music events, a graphic educational dashboard display showing performance of the system, and 1500 Watts of solar panels. The structure can produce about 7kWh of solar energy on a typical day.

The solar powered fabric roof connects to a silent, clean battery storage system with 270-amp hours of capacity. It offers enough power to support lighting, tools, electric bicycles, cell phones, fans, and dozens of phones and laptop computers. The system also features a dashboard that educates visitors with a graphic display about the power being generated and consumed in real-time. The rainwater harvesting system features a water diverter that channels rainwater from the roof into three large basins that store the water for future use in the gardens.

“La Plaza is thrilled to have collaborated with Pvilion to bring our solar vision to reality! Pvilion has been a delight to work with throughout the entire process,” said Ross Martin of La Plaza.

With the new addition of solar fabric roofing and power systems, the space now serves as a shelter for gardeners and guests during the day and a social center for events in the evenings. The space will also serve as a resiliency hub for the neighborhood if needed. With the added ability to provide amenities for the guests and users of the garden, it is equipped to better serve the community.

The structure originated as a simple 20′ x 20′ timber frame in the heart of the garden and is made of sustainably grown, horse harvested, and hand-hewn timber. It was erected entirely by hand by mostly volunteers. Ultimately, it will also feature a green roof, permeable paving, and removable sides, making it a truly unique example of green architecture in the city.

Pvilion’s solar powered pavilion is a long-awaited compliment to this beloved community garden in lower Manhattan. The garden plans to host a celebration inaugurating the solar pavilion soon.

About Pvilion

Pvilion is a solar-based fabrics and tent company, who offers products that range from stand-alone solar canopies to solar military tents, grid-tied long span structures, solar powered charging stations, solar powered curtains, building facades, backpacks, and clothing. They are known for integrating solar cells with fabrics and building fabric products that can generate electricity. To learn more visit https://www.pvilion.com/.

About La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez Community Garden

La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez is a community garden and park on 9th Street and Avenue C proudly serving Manhattan’s Lower East Side for nearly a half a century through food production, education, entertainment, and recreation. After decades of reclaiming abandoned lots, restoring damaged landscapes, and fighting development pressure from all levels of government, they are finally stable enough to focus on their dreams of being a much-needed hub and model for sustainable, regenerative, and resilient urban living. Their solar pavilion will enhance and facilitate this end, providing an indoor/outdoor space powered completely off grid, for gathering, workshops, and entertainment. To learn more visit https://laplazacultural.com/.

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Project Spotlight: Texas A&M University Central Texas

July 24, 2023 | Julia Fowler

How Pvilion helped provide students safe outdoor space on campus to recharge between classes.

Texas A&M University Central Texas’s Needed Some Shade

Texas A&M University’s Central Texas campus needed an outdoor space where students could rest in the shade outside, enjoy the charming comfort of campus, hangout with one another, and of course charge their phones and laptops in between classes. The Central Texas location of the Texas A&M University System was founded in 2009 and has a beautifully landscaped campus where students can enjoy their free time while attending one of the largest systems of higher education in the country.

The Challenge

The university faced the challenge of providing shaded space that solved all of these needs, while meeting the campus’s sustainability goals, and without taking away from the attractive layout of the campus’s thoughtfully executed landscape architecture design. They turned to Pvilion to design and provide a fully turn-key solution to address all of these needs.

Our Solution

Pvilion designed, manufactured, and installed a 12-foot by 12-foot solar fabric canopy with adorning tensile fabric shade sails for added shade and attractiveness. The canopy itself is semi-permanent and can be relocated if desired.  The shaded space was completed with hammocks, picnic benches, and of course solar powered battery kits for device charging. Students can now enjoy the charming outdoor views of campus with one another from the comfort of solar-powered shade!

Pvilion’s Quad Pole Solar Sail on Texas A&M University Central Texas campus
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Global Design News

Pvilion has created a solar pavilion that is both a free-standing, modular, self-sufficient way for community gardens to power their activities as well as a protector from rain while harvesting rainwater

Global Design News |  May 22, 2023

In collaboration with Nos Quedamos and its partners, Todd Dalland from Pvilion has designed and will build and install Pvilion’s Community Garden Solar Pavilions for Community for WE STAY/Nos Quedamos, Inc.

The pavilions are highly visible, south facing, free-standing, modular, self-sufficient solar pavilions in low shade areas of local community gardens.

Pvilion’s Community Garden Solar Pavilions for Community has recently been awarded a 2023 Green Good Design Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

They include rows of electrical outlets and USB outlets on countertops to charge cell phones, and other low voltage equipment.

The electricity that powers the outlets will be harvested from sunlight by lightweight, flexible solar cells that are integrated into the fabric of the solar pavilions.

Educational solar dashboards will be built into the pavilions to provide information regarding how much power is currently available in the batteries, how much power is currently being generated by the solar panels, and how much power is being drawn by the devices plugged in.

There will also be free, automatic wi-fi access, and routers will be built into the solar pavilions and powered by the solar energy harvested.

Wi-fi access will be available on cell phones automatically with no password required.

The design also includes low-voltage LED lights powered by the solar energy harvested to be built into the solar pavilions, to provide lighting at night.

There will be decorative lighting available to make the fabric roofs glow like urban lanterns at night and change colors for different occasions.

The solar pavilions will also feature sloped and guttered fabric roofs that will harvest rainwater, along with built-in spigots that will allow the water collected to be used for gardening to grow food and water the gardens.

The rainwater will be stored in above grade tanks.

Overall, the solar pavilions will serve as shelter from the sun and rain for meetings, presentations, and performances.

They are designed to be used as are multi-purpose outdoor rooms for community services, gallery shows, concerts, film screenings and other events.

Most importantly, the structures will be used as community resiliency hubs in the case of emergencies such as hurricanes, blackouts, and other disasters.

Fabric walls will be added to provide additional weather protection, which will be anchored to the ground and can be relocated when need be.

Project: Pvilion’s Community Garden Solar Pavilions for Community
Architects: Pvilion
Lead Architect: Todd Dalland
Partners: Nos Quedamos
Client: WE STAY/Nos Quedamos, Inc.
Images courtesy of the architects

To read from the original source, click here.

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WINNER |  2023 Green Good Design Awards

Pvilion’s Community Garden Solar Pavilions for Community Gardens

As Awarded by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design.

Location: Bronx, New York, USA
Architects: Pvilion
Lead Architect: Todd Dalland
Client: WE STAY/Nos Quedamos, Inc.
Photographs courtesy of the architects


In collaboration with Nos Quedamos and its partners, Pvilion has designed and will soon build and install highly visible, south facing, free-standing, modular, self-sufficient solar pavilions in low shade areas of local community gardens, with rows of electrical outlets and USB outlets on countertops to charge cell phones, and other low voltage equipment. The electricity that powers the outlets will be harvested from sunlight by lightweight, flexible solar cells that are integrated into the fabric of the solar pavilions.

Educational solar dashboards will be built into the pavilions to provide information regarding how much power is currently available in the batteries, how much power is currently being generated by the solar panels and how much power is being drawn by the devices plugged in.

There will also be free, automatic wi-fi access. Routers will be built into the solar pavilions and powered by the solar energy harvested. Wi-fi access will be available on cell phones automatically with no password required.

The design also includes low-voltage LED lights powered by the solar energy harvested to be built into the solar pavilions, to provide lighting at night. There will also be decorative lighting available to make the fabric roofs glow like urban lanterns at night and change colors for different occasions. The solar pavilions will also feature sloped and guttered fabric roofs that will harvest rainwater, along with built-in spigots that will allow the water collected to be used for gardening to grow food and water the gardens. The rainwater will be stored in above grade tanks.

Overall, the solar pavilions will serve as shelter from the sun and rain for meetings, presentations, and performances. They are designed to be used as are multi-purpose outdoor rooms for community services, gallery shows, concerts, film screenings and other events.

Most importantly, the structures will be used as community resiliency hubs in the case of emergencies such as hurricanes, blackouts, and other disasters. Fabric walls will be added to provide additional weather protection. They will be anchored to the ground and can be relocated when need be.


About the Green Good Design Sustainability Awards:

“For 2023, Green GOOD DESIGN received hundreds of submissions from around the world. Members of The European Center’s International Advisory Committee—worldwide leaders in the design industry—served as the jury and selected over 180 new products, programs, people, environmental planning, and architecture as outstanding examples of Green Design.

The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design have joined forces on two continents to present an innovative and challenging new public program: GREEN GOOD DESIGN SUSTAINABILITY AWARDS.

GOOD DESIGN™ was founded in Chicago in 1950 by Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames, and Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. to promote and foster a greater public understanding and acceptance for Modern Design.

Now in turn and in 2023, GREEN GOOD DESIGN‘s goal is to bestow international recognition to those outstanding individuals, companies, organizations, governments, and institutions – together with their products, services, programs, ideas, and concepts-that have forwarded exceptional thinking and inspired greater progress toward a more healthier and more sustainable universe.” (This is an excerpt from their website. Click here to read more on the original site.)

To view the award listing, click here.

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Project Spotlight: Pvilion Canopies to be Featured in the Croton Water Filtration Plant Golf Course

August 17, 2022 | Julia Fowler

Soon Pvilion canopies will keep patrons of the Mosholu Golf Course driving range cool in the shade, as they practice directly above the Croton Water Filtration Plant.

Pvilion on the Course

Construction on this project with its fully sustainable “living roof” began again in 2015. The driving range located within the golf course features natural water elements, inspired by the native habitats found in the park. Featured on the driving range directly above the water treatment plant, will be 31 Pvilion canopies. These canopies will shade patrons that utilize the driving range in the golf course. 

Rendering of the upcoming project by Pvilion

What is the Croton Water Filtration Plant?

The Croton Water Filtration Plant, located in the Bronx, is the first water treatment plan located within New York’s boroughs. Not only is it the oldest water supply system in New York City, but it is also the largest underground water filtration plant in the United states. The plant stretches for twelve acres beneath the ground, located beneath the Mosholu Golf Course inVan Cortlandt Park

Fully Hidden Underground

Responsible for processing a third of the city’s drinking water, The Croton is one of the largest infrastructure projects in New York City. Fully underground, the treatment plant is 12 stories tall. You would never know it from above, though. On the surface, all that’s visible are wetlands, park grounds, and golf course. 

To learn more about the Croton Water Filtration Plant Project, click here.

public safety

Solar Sails at Skyland Park, Atlanta

Using its proprietary lamination process, coupled with 40+ years as leaders in tensile structure design, Pvilion has developed permanent solar powered canopy products that are scalable for your shade and power needs.

These innovative lightweight structures not only provide shade and solar energy, but LED lighting and mobile charging using built-in USB ports. Either grid-tied or off-grid, Pvilion’s canopies are customizable with scalable battery back-up systems depending on your installation needs. 

Whether your project is one-of-a-kind or boasts multiple structures, Pvilion’s solar canopies can be engineered for a single, two or four pole configuration. Pvilion’s code-compliant solar fabric structures are the perfect sustainable solution with a story to tell.

landscape

Solar Canopy at Cascades Bridge

Pvilion is partnered with Figg Bridge Engineers to engineer, fabricate and install Figg’s design for the first solar powered pedestrian bridge in the world. Providing electricity to power lighting for Capital Cascades Park, this landmark project is at the forefront of Tallahassee’s growth.

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Miami Beach Bandshell Canopy

Pvillion was approached by The Rhythm Foundation, a not-for-profit organization highlighting live music in Miami, to design and build a solar powered architectural canopy. The mission was as follows – add a canopy that will provide shade from the sun and rain protection in keeping with and honoring this historical cultural facility. Pvilion’s compelling design was quickly accepted by the City of Miami Beach.

The final design is a functional work of art. The circular geometry of the canopy is designed to be economical, elegant and effective. The look of the canopy was inspired by the beloved circular forms originally designed by the renowned Miami Modern architect Norman N. Giller. In addition to its fun and practical design, the canopy’s shape allows it to work similarly to an inverted umbrella or in fashion with Miami Beach, a martini glass, with an enhanced drainage system to account for water. The durable fabric of the canopy can withstand most Florida wind thresholds and can also be retracted in the event of a hurricane. The canopy continues the play of circles and cantilevers as it spans 70’ on a single column over the original terrazzo dance floor. The canopy is also adorned with decorative energy efficient, solar powered, turtle-friendly lights around the perimeter.

Architect on Record: Giller & Giller, Inc

General Contractor: Design – Build Construction, Inc.