Last week I pulled into the entrance for the Ryerson Woods Welcome Center and was immediately immersed in a jungle of bright green foliage. As I drove down the pathway, I noticed that the surrounding greenery was bright almost to the point of being luminescent, which I attributed both to the mid-May weather and the large amount of rain that had fallen the previous evening. A couple of Mallards waddled near the side of the road, and I cruised past them and a traditional-style log cabin before spying the white Welcome Center building.
I entered the building and was quickly struck by how comfortable it felt inside. I was to find out that the air flow (unlike the air flow in most buildings) is not re-circulated, but rather rises in one direction, from the floor upwards, and passes through a heat-recovery system before being exhausted through the vents on the roof. The removed heat or cool is transferred to an impressive geo-exchange HVAC system, where it is used to regulate the temperature of the building. Instead of relying on outside air to heat up or cool down the building, the Welcome Center utilizes twelve wells, each 150 feet deep, located on the south side of the structure. Tubes filled with an alcohol-based non-freezing liquid circulate from the building to the wells and back to the building at 55 degrees, the steady temperature of the earth at 6 feet underground. In the summer, the 55 degree temperature is used for cooling, and in the winter the heat is extracted and then warmed just 13 degrees to reach 68 degrees. Computer modeling suggests that the geo-exchange system will pay for itself, through energy savings, in as little as eight years.
The big, red eyes of a metal cicada greeted me as I moved into the main area. The exquisite sculpture, dubbed "Magicicada", was beautifully crafted out of recycled steel. Much of the building, it turned out, from the chip board ceiling, to the carpet, ceiling tiles, drywall, and fencing, were constructed from recycled materials. Both the floors inside and the sidewalk outside were built from concrete made of fly ash and slag, allowing for safe sequestration of hazardous materials and increased water resistance. Through a tour of the premises, I learned that all of the builiding's insulation is actually located on the outside of the structure- two overlapping layers of four-inch, nailable, rigid insulation cover the walls and roof, and care was taken to seal any area that had to be punctured during construction.
I began to feel like I was in a science-fiction movie as I moved about the building; in the staff area, motion lights came on as I moved through particular sections and turned off after I had passed. Pipes leading through the building transport rain water from the gutters to large cisterns, with the cistern on the northern portion of the building holding 60,000 gallons. The collected water is used to supply the sprinkler system and for landscape watering. In the main area, I discovered that the abundant natural light throughout the center was carefully planned. Only one window was placed on each the east and west sides of the building, where sun exposure varies wildly throughout the year. A large overhang above the program room blocks direct sunlight in the hot summer months, and allows sunlight to heat the concrete floor in the winter.
Back outside, I was impressed to learn about the construction of the rain gardens, which are designed to catch and temporarily store runoff from melting rain and snow. The soils in the garden depressions are augmented to allow water to quickly absorb back into the ground, ideally in less than 48 hours (too little time to allow pools to become mosquito breeding habitats). Native plants were used in building the gardens, with the more water-tolerant plants towards the center of the depressions. The 100-car parking lot seems to have been built with similar science in mind, as the porous asphalt allows water to drain through it like a sieve to a holding basin below. The basin is around five feet deep and filled with cantaloupe-sized rocks, the depth determined by the percolation rate of the soils below. I left the grounds feeling inspired, convinced that the building was worthy of the numerous awards bestowed upon it. If some day all industry is this environmentally-conscious, I decided, we will have made a great leap in using technology to better the planet for future generations.
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I entered the building and was quickly struck by how comfortable it felt inside. I was to find out that the air flow (unlike the air flow in most buildings) is not re-circulated, but rather rises in one direction, from the floor upwards, and passes through a heat-recovery system before being exhausted through the vents on the roof. The removed heat or cool is transferred to an impressive geo-exchange HVAC system, where it is used to regulate the temperature of the building. Instead of relying on outside air to heat up or cool down the building, the Welcome Center utilizes twelve wells, each 150 feet deep, located on the south side of the structure. Tubes filled with an alcohol-based non-freezing liquid circulate from the building to the wells and back to the building at 55 degrees, the steady temperature of the earth at 6 feet underground. In the summer, the 55 degree temperature is used for cooling, and in the winter the heat is extracted and then warmed just 13 degrees to reach 68 degrees. Computer modeling suggests that the geo-exchange system will pay for itself, through energy savings, in as little as eight years.
The big, red eyes of a metal cicada greeted me as I moved into the main area. The exquisite sculpture, dubbed "Magicicada", was beautifully crafted out of recycled steel. Much of the building, it turned out, from the chip board ceiling, to the carpet, ceiling tiles, drywall, and fencing, were constructed from recycled materials. Both the floors inside and the sidewalk outside were built from concrete made of fly ash and slag, allowing for safe sequestration of hazardous materials and increased water resistance. Through a tour of the premises, I learned that all of the builiding's insulation is actually located on the outside of the structure- two overlapping layers of four-inch, nailable, rigid insulation cover the walls and roof, and care was taken to seal any area that had to be punctured during construction.
I began to feel like I was in a science-fiction movie as I moved about the building; in the staff area, motion lights came on as I moved through particular sections and turned off after I had passed. Pipes leading through the building transport rain water from the gutters to large cisterns, with the cistern on the northern portion of the building holding 60,000 gallons. The collected water is used to supply the sprinkler system and for landscape watering. In the main area, I discovered that the abundant natural light throughout the center was carefully planned. Only one window was placed on each the east and west sides of the building, where sun exposure varies wildly throughout the year. A large overhang above the program room blocks direct sunlight in the hot summer months, and allows sunlight to heat the concrete floor in the winter.
Back outside, I was impressed to learn about the construction of the rain gardens, which are designed to catch and temporarily store runoff from melting rain and snow. The soils in the garden depressions are augmented to allow water to quickly absorb back into the ground, ideally in less than 48 hours (too little time to allow pools to become mosquito breeding habitats). Native plants were used in building the gardens, with the more water-tolerant plants towards the center of the depressions. The 100-car parking lot seems to have been built with similar science in mind, as the porous asphalt allows water to drain through it like a sieve to a holding basin below. The basin is around five feet deep and filled with cantaloupe-sized rocks, the depth determined by the percolation rate of the soils below. I left the grounds feeling inspired, convinced that the building was worthy of the numerous awards bestowed upon it. If some day all industry is this environmentally-conscious, I decided, we will have made a great leap in using technology to better the planet for future generations.
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