Deep Green Design is our new short series devoted to
showcasing some of the greenest built projects completed and/or recognized
during 2009. From lifecycle designs to living buildings and the creation of
sustainable city blocks, this series offers a snapshot of selected projects
that are pushing the limits of green design around the world.
First up is the Bernheim Arboretum Visitors
Center, winner of the Lifecycle Building Challenge 3: Building-Professional
Built; Outstanding Achievement Award for Best Greenhouse Gas Reduction. Located
in Clermont, Kentucky (25 miles south of downtown Louisville) this LEED
Platinum center was completed in 2007. The design by William McDonough +
Partners emphasizes wood for the building’s structure and skin as a natural
gateway to the 14,000-acre Arboretum and Research Forest. As the LBC3 summary
states:
“The visitors' center design roots the building firmly in
its woodland context by blurring distinctions between the indoors and outdoors,
and by incorporating the surrounding forest into the building's lifecycle
analysis. Construction emphasized safe, closed material loops of biological
nutrients, which break down to safely return to forest soil; and technical
nutrients, which can be remanufactured into new objects.”
In short, lifecycle
building design involves the use of materials, components, systems, and practices
to create buildings that facilitate and anticipate future changes and eventual recovery/reuse
of those same systems, etc. As one of the top entries recognized for the 2009
LBC competition, the visitor center’s design highlights flexibility and disassembly.
The bolted connections, reusable brackets and removable infill panels of its
structural system allow for reconfiguration or building additions in any direction.
At the end of its useful life, most elements of the center can be unbolted,
loaded on a truck and delivered to another site for reassembly or repurposing
with ease.
Additional design elements for the 6,408-square-foot center include
passive and smart HVAC systems, integrated to make the building 51% more
efficient than ASHRAE standards. Over 90% of the interior is daylit; stack-driven
natural ventilation within its tall pavilions reduces energy use; the concrete
floor stabilizes the interior temperature against daily extremes of heat and
cold; deciduous trees and trellis vines provide summer shade but let winter sunlight
warm the thermal mass. Also, vegetated
bioswales reduce runoff into downslope lakes while a planted rain garden
creates habitat and allows infiltration. Reclaimed sources provide 60% of water
used: the effluent of a peat moss blackwater treatment system for irrigation
and rainwater for flushing toilets.
Other key green
features include a vegetated roof, photovoltaics to produce energy on site,
and geothermal heating and cooling systems. See more photos and details on the
project at William
McDonough + Partners.

ALL IMAGES: Lifecycle Building Challenge
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