By Jim Nicolow
Rocky Mountain Institute has
collaborated with numerous design
firms over the years, but efforts with
design fi rm Lord, Aeck & Sargent
(LAS) have been particularly fruitful.
RMI worked with LAS on the Blue
Ridge Parkway Visitor’s Center,
the Southface Energy Institute Eco
Office, the Great Smoky Mountains
National Park’s Twin Creeks Science
and Education Center, the National
Estuarine Research Reserve’s Grand
Bay Visitor’s Center, and a handful of
other buildings. Recently, RMI helped
LAS with the design of a remarkable
new building in Georgia, the Gwinnett
[County] Environmental + Heritage
Center (GEHC), which was awarded
one of Environmental Design +
Construction magazine’s 2007 Excellence
in Design Awards.
Gwinnett County is one of the fastest
growing counties in the country,
and, although the Atlanta area gets
50 inches of rain per year, the water
table lies deep within the area’s granite
bedrock, making it
inaccessible to users.
Atlanta area suburbs
thus rely on surface
water. Recognizing that
the County’s fast-paced
growth would place
tremendous strain on
water resources, County
officials established
the Center to improve
education about the
critical role that water
plays in daily life. The
two-story, 59,000-
square-foot facility
blends indoor and outdoor classroom
spaces, exterior trails and exhibits, a
collection of permanent and rotating
displays, and interactive learning
opportunities. The Center is projected
to use 76 percent less potable water
and 35 percent less energy than a
conventional building of the same size,
and the GEHC achieved LEED Goldlevel
certification in the U.S. Green
Building Council’s LEED system.
RMI’s role was to analyze glazing,
daylight, shading, and energy use.
Throughout the design process,
charrettes were conducted with
the entire design team, the owner’s
team, and various user groups and
stakeholders. The facility’s signature
integrated design feature—a unique
cooling shoals water feature1—sprang
directly from the charrettes. The
landscape architect proposed a water
feature, the owner suggested reusing
non-potable water from the
adjacent treatment plant, and the
architect envisioned using the feature
to condition the building. These
wonderful synergies can only happen
when everyone is at the table.
The project’s environmental goals and
strategies were developed specifically
to respond to regional environmental
challenges. The three major challenges
identified are: limited potable
water supply (the Atlanta Regional
Commission predicts that water will
be the resource that limits the region’s
growth); polluted stormwater; and poor
air quality (due to urban heat-island
eff ect and air pollution from coal-fi red
power plants in the area).
A green roof was anticipated from
the project’s inception to reduce urban
heat-island effect as well as naturally
controlling and treating stormwater.
The building is fully capped with an
extensive green-roof system planted
with six species of conventional
drought-tolerant sedums. An 800-
square-foot portion of the roof is
planted with native granite outcrop
plants, providing a test plot for
developing a native palette of plants for
use on green roofs in the local Piedmont
region. Four different types of porous
paving are featured, and runoff from the
green roof and paving is directed into
bioswales as well as two detention areas
planted with native wetlands species.
After the building was completed, the
amount of stormwater running off the
site remained the same—in both quality
and volume.
"It's an attractive building. And it
demonstrates how synthesizing environmental
concerns into the design can result in better
architecture as well as better performance."
-Victor Olgyay, RMI
All site plantings are native to the
region and are grouped according to
appropriate existing plant communities
and onsite micro-climates. Non-potable
water from the facility’s water treatment
plant is used for irrigation
via a drip irrigation system
and for toilet flushing (the
first such installation in
the state). Waterless urinals
and low-fl ow (0.5 gallonper-
minute), automatic
lavatory faucets were used
throughout.
The building was
elongated on an east–west
axis to maximize passive
heating and cooling,
and daylight modeling,
solar geometry analysis,
and energy modeling
were utilized to optimize the design. Daylighting is abundant
throughout the building, and the
clerestory monitors are equipped
with operable louvers for the exhaust
of hot air during fan-assisted passive
ventilation mode.
“It’s an attractive building,” said
RMI’s Victor Olgyay, AIA. “And
it demonstrates how synthesizing
environmental concerns into the design
can result in better architecture as well
as better performance.”
ED+C’s award judge Peter Levasseur
said, “Seventy-six percent water
usage reduction and 35 percent
energy usage in such a great-looking
facility demonstrate that care was
placed in both the architectural and
systems design of this facility. The
interior, exterior, and site design
show an integration of aesthetic with
performance that shine above other
submissions in this category. Coupled
with an intent to educate the public,
this Environmental and Heritage
Center is a space I would not want to
miss visiting.”
Th is article was adapted from “2007
Excellence in Design Awards: Gwinnett
Environmental + Heritage Center,”
provided by Jim Nicolow, AIA, LEED AP,
and published in Environmental Design
+ Construction magazine. Jim leads the
Sustainability Initiative at Lord, Aeck
& Sargent. Last year he was named one
of Building Design & Construction
magazine’s “40 Under 40” up-andcomers.
