Growing green
by Mark Derewicz
(filed under: biology)
part of this issue’s life unlimited story series
When Peter White became director of the North Carolina Botanical Garden in 1986, his staff was already outgrowing the Totten Center off Fordham Boulevard in Chapel Hill. In 1999 the garden received a gift of $2.6 million, and by 2007 White’s fundraising team had come up with enough additional money to start construction of a new building.
Scheduled to open in summer 2009, the N.C. Botanical Garden Education Center is designed to meet the platinum standard in the LEED rating system of environmentally friendly construction. White says it was only natural to strive for platinum. “This garden has always carved out a niche in biodiversity, conservation, and environmental issues, unlike many other gardens that are purely about beauty or horticulture,” he says.
The center is made up of three two-story wooden buildings connected by covered breezeways. Porous paved parking lots allow rain to filter through to the ground and water the garden. Underground water-storage units and seven giant cisterns also aid irrigation. Solar panels will provide at least 15 percent of the center’s energy needs.
The buildings’ wood siding was made from Atlantic White Cedar trees blown over near the North Carolina coast during hurricanes. The roofs are metal, which will reduce heating and cooling costs, as will a geothermal heat-exchange system. Clerestory windows let in light and heat in winter, but are shaded in summer. Trees on the site were made into trim for the insides of the buildings. Oak flooring came from trees felled during demolition projects in the Triangle. The center’s elevators have energy-efficient motors and use no hydraulic fluid.
At first, the project was called the Visitor Education Center. But White dropped the ‘visitor’ part. “We’re calling it the Education Center because the word visitor has a connotation of coming and going and just visiting,” White says. “And we want to convey a message of participation. We want people coming to classes, lectures, and summer camps. We want them to do field hikes. It’s not like a visitor’s center off I-40.”
LEED — Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design — is a voluntary rating system overseen by the U.S. Green Building Council. The garden’s new education center was funded in part by a gift from the estate of Kay Bradley Mouzon.
