Green ArchiTEXT

Nearly 3 years after twister, Kansas hospital to rise from rubble

IMAGE: Health Facilities Group

In just a few weeks, one of Greensburg’s most recognizable community landmarks will reopen.

But the Kiowa County Memorial Hospital won’t be in the same location and it will look nothing like the 1950s-era hospital that was destroyed in the May 4, 2007, tornado.

However, it will have much of the same staff and the same values, more deeply instilled through the tragedy of the tornado and the ups and downs of rebuilding.

Like many of Greensburg’s "landmark” buildings, the hospital has been built to LEED Platinum standards, the highest-rated certification for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

via newsok.com

Greensburg: Re-Emerging Green

In the year since an F-5 tornado tore through and leveled the small Kansas town, Greensburg has gained the world’s attention for its plans to rebuild green – very green. On this, the one-year anniversary of the event, the town has attracted major media, documentary filmmakers, photographers, universities and some of the top sustainable design firms in the country. Greensburg, the Series, with Leo DiCaprio will even debut next month on the Discovery Channel’s new “Planet Green”.

There are a growing number of Web sites and other resources devoted to the green rebuilding efforts there. Here are a few:

Greensburg GreenTown, a nonprofit organization established after the tornado to funnel resources and expertise into creating a model green community.

Discovery’s new Planet Green channel begins its 13-part series in June, documentating the daily struggles of a community and its citizens through this massive reconstruction effort.

Kansas City’s BNIM was selected as the city’s master planner, to rebuild Greensburg around the principles of economic, social and environmental sustainability. Since then, BNIM has been retained to design the City Hall and Big Well Museum.

City of Greensburg, Kansas, which recently approved a resolution that all city building projects will be built to LEED Platinum level standards.

Studio 804, a design/build program at the University of Kansas School of Architecture and Urban Planning, is building a “Sustainable Prototype for Greensburg, KS”.

Greensburg Cubed is a project of Design + Build @ Kansas State University, College of Architecture, Planning, and Design to build several small-scale modules demonstrating sustainable structures, systems and materials.

Greensburg Will Be Platinum

PHOTO: © Larry Schwarm

As the one-year anniversary of the Greensburg, Kansas tornado approaches, Architectural Record's "Greensburg Aims for a Platinum Shade of Green" reports on master planning, the upcoming Discovery Channel series and other recent progress by the city toward rebuilding as a completely sustainable community:

"BNIM associate Stephen Hardy, who, with colleague Rachel Weden, was largely responsible for the sustainable master plan, says of the LEED Platinum announcement, “While you wouldn’t pick western Kansas as a hotbed for sustainability, we’ve found that [Greensburg officials and residents] understand natural systems and have absorbed progressive green thinking much more deeply than their urban counterparts.” The master plan, which stresses walkability, water conservation and stormwater management, and citywide-wind power, also may contribute to the goal. Hardy imagines building owners opting into municipal wind power instead of producing their own renewable energy on site."

Also featured in the article are dramatic photographs taken by award-winning photographer Larry Schwarm, a native of Greensburg, whose one-man exhibition "Greensburg After the Storm" will be featured at Wichita State's Ulrich Museum of Art beginning today.

The Greening of Greensburg

The Good Fight is a new Web series debuting today on SundanceChannel.com. Created and hosted by sustainability journalist Simran Sethi, each 'webisode' looks at "places where environmentalism is a necessity, not a luxury".

Their first video project focuses on the green rebuilding of Greensburg, Kansas, a community of 1,400 nearly wiped out by an F-5 tornado on May 4, 2007.

"Nearly a year after the catastrophe, dozens of FEMA trailers continue to dot a landscape of unbelievable devastation. However, the residents of this 1400-person town are coming back strong and rebuilding their homes, businesses and lives. This rebuilding effort is going green with the support of city officials, local business, and a burgeoning non-profit named Greensburg Greentown. All the reconstructed city buildings over 4,000 sq. ft. are required to be certified LEED-platinum, plans are underway for the entire town to run on wind power, and individual homes are being rebuilt slowly and sustainably.”

In five short videos (each two to 5 minutes long), Sethi provides a unique snapshot of Greensburg, describing how “...residents are transforming a crisis into an opportunity – and rebuilding green.” She interviews the mayor, business owners and at least one resident who is using a total energy solution package to rebuild his house 50 times more efficient than an EnergyStar-rated home. Also we meet Daniel Wallach, who created the Greensburg Green Town Rebuilding Project after the tornado. And the owners of Bucklin Tractor & Implement (BTI), a John Deere dealership that was completely destroyed but plans to rebuild LEED Platinum and serve as a model of sustainable construction for dealerships nationwide.

Read more about the series here and view Webisodes of "The Good Fight" here.

Bob Berkebile: The City as a Living System

IMAGE: USGBC & BNIM

Planner/architect Bob Berkebile of BNIM Architects in Kansas City was featured in a special video presented at the annual Greenbuild Conference and Expo held in Chicago this past November. A few excerpts on his thoughts about ‘design integrity’, creating the first ‘climate positive communities’ and approaching our cities as living systems:

“I think we’re in a moment of enormous change...and one of those changes has to do how we imagine the future.”

“Every human being, every blade of grass, every wildlife...are all connected to each of these building decisions. So the breakthrough for me, and I think for all of us has been, let’s look at the entire system. Let’s start thinking of community as a living system.”

He also refers to the ‘first climate refugees’ resulting from Hurricane Katrina more than two years ago.

“In ’05, when a group of people from New Orleans following Katrina came to Greenbuild in Atlanta, through that experience we learned that following these disasters, the first inclination is to rebuild exactly what we had, exactly where it was, at the earliest possible moment. So the tension is for all of us to come together as a community and find a way to build the first climate positive communities that offer affordable housing and more vitality for the social, economic and environmental systems than were ever realized in those communities before the disaster struck.”

"More recently, in Greensburg, Kansas in May of this year, a tornado removed a community of 2,500 people from the face of the planet. And we have seen this week the city administrator from the City of Greensburg and the governor of Kansas and a host of others – the Discovery Channel who’s working with them – to try to create a community again that sets a new standard for rural American communities. If we look at our American rural communities, we find they’re all declining in population, economic vitality, etc. So how do we re-think that system and how do we build a community that is built entirely on renewable, regenerative strategies with energy, with water, with all of our resources and especially, the human resources that reside in those communities."

"If we’re going to approach our cities as opportunities for regenerative community building, we have to look at the city as a living system.”

View Bob’s full video here.