I ’bout fell off my bicycle Saturday afternoon riding across Brooklyn through Crown Heights, when I rounded a boarded up pre-war apartment building and came upon this giant yellow monster.

So this is the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. Why didn’t anyone tell me Brooklyn had one of those? I really should get me a kid, so I can be in the loop on such swell goings-on.

Not only is the museum a gem to behold, it’s super-sustainable. Designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects and opened last September, the building achieved a LEED Silver rating for its use of rapidly renewable and recycled materials in construction. The big yellow building even has geothermal wells for heating and cooling purposes. Wow. I wonder what those look like.

And check out the Museum from above:

Photo: Michael Moran

Lovely. It’s incredible to see such bold design in a public project—plopped in the middle of Crown Heights, no less, rather than in Dumbo, Brooklyn, or some such trendy (read: ridiculous) location. This place for kids could hold its own against any boutique hotel on the Lower East Side.

Score: 1, NYC Department of Design and Construction. And one for Brooklyn.