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Highlands Today

Archbold's expansion includes green buildings

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By CHRISTY SWIFT

For Highlands Today

Published: December 3, 2009

VENUS - A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Monday to celebrate the finalization of building plans for the Adrian Archbold Center at the Archbold Biological Station in Venus.

Highlands County Commissioner Barbara Stewart was in attendance, along with founder Richard Archbold's 97-year-old sister and board member Francis Hufty, other board members, and approximately 50 employees and supporters of the initiative.

The three-building center, designed by architect Jeff Mudgett, will include a visitor's center, interpretive educational displays, a K-12 deck for school initiatives, auditorium/meeting rooms and a 14-room lodge.

The buildings are being designed to meet the requirements of Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)'s platinum certification standards for green buildings. In order to achieve this, they must be zero net energy buildings, said Operations Manager Bert Crawford. That means they need to produce all of the energy it takes to run them. This will be done with photovoltaic solar panels on the roof, which will generate the electricity needed to run lights, heat and air conditioning.

Rain water will also be collected in a cistern that will be used to run the commodes and urinals, and the learning center itself will be an exhibit for green construction. For example, the downspouts and gutters will be made of clear plastic so that visitors can see the rainwater being collected, and there will be descriptive signage in place on volt meters, water meters and more.
Native foliage will also be used to minimize water requirements in the landscaping, and the buildings are being constructed with lots of deck space and breezeways to minimize the need for air conditioning.

"The outdoor spaces are just as important as the indoor spaces," said Mudgett, as he gave the crowd a tour of the construction site where fresh Florida black bear prints were still visible in the sand. "And we're going to be able to run the rooms 90 percent of the time with no electrical lighting."

Even the parking lot will be made of pervious pavement, which allows water to seep through so that it can return to the aquifer. And construction crews are limited to a 500-mile radius as far as purchasing and transporting construction materials, which, as Assistant Research Biologist Betsie Rothermel pointed out, also supports the local economy.

The requirements are strict, but the staff at Archbold is striving to meet them in an affordable way so as to inspire the community.

"We wanted to build a fully sustainable building in a price range that is affordable for other people," said Geographic Information Systems Manager Roberta Pickert.

"We have to be able to prove to the public that this is a worthwhile effort," added Crawford.

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