Blackrock Forest Center for Science and Education

Narratives

Architect Narrative

What exemplary ideas does the design contain that enhance learning?

The Forest Center for Science and Education provides a needed setting for environmental study and research for staff, scientific teams, and student groups ranging in age from kindergarten through graduate school. It was conceived as a home for a non-profit consortium of 20 public and private schools, colleges, universities, and scientific and cultural institutions engaged in research, education, and conservation in this 3,750-acre forest preserve. At the outset of the project, the consortium and the architect developed a statement of principles for the building, which states:

“The Center will be designed to demonstrate how we can learn about our natural world using a facility seamlessly incorporated into a natural setting in a sensible, sensitive, and sustainable manner. We want the building to be an embodiment of what the Consortium is all about.”

The objective for the Center combines modern-day technology with environmental ideology. Careful planning was required to construct a building that addresses the needs of researchers, educators, and hundreds of visiting students, without compromising the environmentally responsible ethic that is the foundation of the consortium’s development and with minimal disturbance to the vast, delicate ecosystem of the surrounding forest.

The Consortium was founded on the belief that the forest could be used as a model site for learning basic scientific principles, emphasizing an experiential approach, and fostering investigative and problem-solving skills—for students from grade school to graduate school, researching biological processes from soils to plants to bugs to animals. The Forest Center project represents the advancement of environmentally sustainable architecture in concert with technology, paralleling the philosophy and mission of the client—a non-profit consortium for the teaching of natural sciences in a vast forest preserve.

What innovations in the planning, programming, and design process supported the realization of these exemplary ideas?

The two-story Science and Education Center Building is located on a sloped, south-facing site within the forest. It houses orientation, display and instructional space including wet/dry labs, research labs, a reference library and conference room, administrative offices, and a data center which serves as the base station for the Consortium’s environmental monitoring system.

The Center’s site-sensitive design, building form, material use, and energy consumption management make it a model sustainable facility. The rectangular footprint and east/west orientation maximizes solar exposure while minimizing building mass, while individual southern window sunshades minimize heat gain in the summer and maximize it in the winter. A central atrium topped by a roof monitor provides internal visual focus for the building while also bringing natural light and ventilation to the building’s center. A highly efficient geothermal heat pump system provides heating and cooling within the well-insulated envelope. A composting toilet system replaces a conventional solid waste system.

Much of the material that was used in the construction of the center was harvested from the forest. Building materials such as the stone veneer are from local sources. The columns that frame the atrium are four types of oak and are from the surrounding forest, as is the pine paneling.

The Center for Science and Education is an ideal venue from which to manage the Forest as an interactive part of a larger natural system. The center provides opportunities to learn, teach, and conduct research using the most modern equipment in a building that conveys an environmental conscience. Labs and lecture areas are connected to a network of computers and have access to the Internet. Data gathered in the forest can be accessed at any of the established computer terminals. Students can observe and monitor environmental changes in both the forest and the center.

As stated in the Consortium’s newsletter when the building was completed: “The new center dramatically illustrates how a building can be seamlessly integrated into a natural setting in a sensible, sensitive, and environmentally sustainable manner. It reflects an understanding and embracing of nature and concern for the environment, and it is designed to serve an education and inspirational function for all who use it.” The Center significantly reduces the Consortium’s reliance on the planet’s finite resources, and serves as a model of energy efficient, low-impact rural architecture.

Using a network of sensors monitoring the building and the environmental conditions, the consortium has been tracking the building’s energy usage on an hourly basis since its opening. As stated in their Winter 2002 newsletter, “As a result of the green features incorporated into the design and construction of the [Center], its energy costs over the first two years of occupancy have been only 43% of those for a comparable building complying with state energy conservation codes, but lacking the [Center’s] advanced features.” In fact the building is running well below annual projected heating and cooling costs. The energy efficient features of the Center, combined with the sensors that provide data on hourly energy use, also make it an important learning tool about the benefits of sustainable design for the students who use the facility.