THIS IS NOT YOUR USUAL GREEN BUILDING. Of course, the priorities for green
building—efficiency, comfort, and ease of maintenance—are all in place. But the newly rebuilt
Eielson Visitor’s Center in Denali National Park, Alaska, has something more to offer those
willing to travel the distance for a visit. According to RMI Principal Victor Olgyay, the park’s
director wanted to create a building that took nothing from the view, which meant blending
the new architecture with the landscape. In essence, the new Eielson strives to be an “invisible”
building, responsive and adapted to its remote location, extreme climate, and seasonal use.
“PEOPLE DON’T RIDE ON A BUS FOR SIX HOURS
to look at a piece of architecture—they ride on a bus for six
hours to look at a great landscape. Rather than fight it, we
decided to join it,” said James Dougherty, Principal of RIM
Architects, the architecture firm that designed Eielson in
partnership with RMI.
In addition to RMI/ENSAR (now RMI’s Built
Environment Team) and RIM Architects, energy modeling
agency Enermodal Engineering helped shape the design of
Eielson. Carrying RMI’s main consulting responsibilities,
Olgyay and RMI Consultant Ashley Muse, who served as a
project manager, facilitated design charrettes, provided energy
and daylighting recommendations, and helped identify the
best methods for alternative energy sources for the building,
such as photovoltaics, battery storage, and small-scale
hydropower. Olgyay and Muse also later coordinated the
LEED application process, resulting in Eielson’s Platinum
certification. Created in 1994 by the U.S. Green Building
Council (USGBC), the LEED (Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design) program has proven to be a useful tool
in benchmarking just how “green” a building is—and is
emerging as a definitive standard for what constitutes a high-
performance building.
Much of that planning occurred in 2005. Since then,
Eielson’s original 1960s era visitor’s center has been completely
redesigned and rebuilt. It is the first entirely federally funded
National Park Service building to receive LEED Platinum
certification, and it is running completely off the grid. The
building also boasts top-notch passive design and the ability to
“go cold” during the six to seven winter months when Denali
becomes impassable and is not in use.
“When you are out in the wilderness, you don’t want to be
confronted with something that interrupts your experience of
the awe of nature and its wildness,” said Muse. “This building
really sort of becomes a part of the landscape; the architectural
design is aesthetically in tune with the experience of the
beautiful vistas.”
Luckily, visitors to Eielson won’t have much to interrupt
their reverie. Sharing walls with the hillside and tucked beneath
a roof planted with native species cultivated from the
surrounding foliage, the center neatly blends in to its tundra
setting. In addition, the building is small, measuring just under
15,000 square feet. One does not find it by accident; the only
way to get there is to take a bus from the park entrance. It is an
educational landmark for visitors to the interior of the park and
a starting point and shelter for backcountry hikers. It can accommodate up to 300 people and in addition to the exhibit
space in the main visitor’s lobby, the building houses a first aid
room, a bookstore, restrooms, and a small staff apartment.
Eielson’s superb design results in an annual energy cost
reduction of 84.7 percent. The building’s passive design halves
energy consumption immediately and keeps the atmosphere
bright and comfortable. Designers capitalized on Eielson’s
function as an assembly space by devising a natural heating
system that recovers heat from the air as it is exhausted after a
rush of visitors. The heat collected by the HRVs—heat recovery
ventilators—is then used to pre-warm incoming air. Eielson’s
design maximizes solar gain through its south-facing windows
and is well-insulated for the extreme climate, including the use
of high-performance windows that reduce the glass’s transfer of
bitter temperatures while allowing plenty of light into the space.
Heat conservation is additionally facilitated by the partial
underground location, where the ambient earth temperature is
warmer and a majority of the building walls are protected from
the wind. Apertures in the side of the building and skylights
provide the majority of daytime light, and daylight sensors
monitor light levels to reduce the use of electric lighting during
the long summer days. The little energy demands that remain
are met by the integrated photovoltaic and small-scale water
turbine systems, which are supplemented by a propane
generator in times of high-energy need.
Denali’s “summer” season is May through September.
During the winter, Denali can be one of the coldest places on
Earth, sustaining temperatures of -40 degrees Fahrenheit and
below. Large amounts of energy that might have been used to
maintain the building throughout the winter are not needed,
however, because the building is designed to be shut down or
“go cold” in winter. The exhibits, the plumbing, and other
elements are designed to withstand the extremely cold weather
without damage.
Eielson’s redesign is also a certification measure for
preservation. In pursuing LEED Platinum certification, which
is based on a credit-point system, the design team was awarded
points for innovation in design through the preservation of the
site’s viewshed. The redesign of Eielson is in part intended to
help preserve the panoramas and vistas that bring visitors from
around the world. According to the project’s LEED application,
the preservation credit highlights the intent “to protect and
preserve this viewshed as a unique and limited resource pivotal
to the sustainable design of the facility.”
“From an architectural standpoint, we were able to
stretch our legs and explore our boundaries,” said Dougherty.
“Through that process, we were able to achieve a better blend
between the natural environment and the built
environment.”
Moreover, Eielson’s LEED Platinum certification is
significant because it shows that state-of-the-art buildings can be
built on a federal budget. Both Muse and Olgyay noted that
several years ago, most Park Service projects using the LEED
rating system aimed for LEED Silver certification; however,
more recent Park Service projects have begun to push for higher
levels of certification. Eielson is a shining example of such an
effort. Despite its remote location, which made design and
construction even more expensive, designers were encouraged to
reach for Platinum within a federal budget.
“It’s not just that they are meeting the majority of their
energy needs through renewable energy—this is possible
because the team has worked so hard to design something that
is appropriate to place, an important cornerstone to
sustainability. And they were able to do all that within the
budget of the federal government,” said Muse.
Eielson was completed on June 8, 2008, and the dedication
and grand re-opening ceremony took place on August 12, 2008.
Eielson is just one shining example of the hundreds of
successful projects completed by the Built Environment Team
at RMI, including several more in partnership with the Park
Service. RMI’s partnership with Denali National Park began in
2002, in the redesign of Denali Visitor’s Center. Other work
RMI is doing or has done with the National Park Service
includes the new Visitor’s Center in Lassen Volcanic National
Park, which is also pursuing LEED Platinum using solely federal
dollars, Zion Visitor’s Center in Zion National Park, and Apgar
Transit Center in Glacier National Park, which has been
certified LEED Gold. Additionally, they are assisting in the
renovation of Carlsbad Caverns National Park Visitor’s Center
at Carlsbad National Park, and Beaver Meadows Visitor’s Center
in Rocky Mountain National Park.
By contributing to the design of projects like Eielson, RMI’s
Built Environment Team has become an international leader in
the green building industry, with projects throughout the world
that span diverse climates and building types.
