Building Green at DNR
Navarino Nature Center

The Renewable Energy Education Addition at Navarino Nature Center (NNC) displays and demonstrates green ideas and design. The key sustainable design features include a high-performance building envelope, cool daylighting, environmentally-friendly building materials and finishes, and advanced mechanical systems.

Renewable Energy and Green Building Features

Passive Solar Heating & Cooling — Passive solar building design uses the buildings windows, walls, and floors to collect, store, and distribute the sun's heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer. Unlike active solar heating systems, it doesn't involve the use of mechanical and electrical devices (fans, pumps) to circulate the heat. A layout with the longest walls running east-west and large windows facing south maximizes lighting and "direct heat gain" in winter, this heat is absorbed into the thermal mass of the building and distributed slowly throughout the building. During the summer months the wide roof overhang shades out summer heat gain and creates in-direct lighting.

High Performance Building Envelope — A high-performance building envelope is essential to minimize the energy required to operate the facility and maintain interior comfort levels for the occupants. The addition uses insulated concrete forms (ICF) in the lower level of the building. The upper level walls are 2x6 structural stud walls creating a 5 1/2" fiberglass insulated cavity. The truss cavity area consists of a blown in recycled insulation. The outside of the building envelope has been wrapped in "Gorilla Wrap ™," which is one of the many types of wall vapor-barriers currently available.

Interactive Displays — The lower level displays an interactive kiosk that monitors the output of energy from the PV system, the energy usage, and the weather conditions present at NNC. The light display present in the lower level compares efficiency of LED and florescent light bulbs to that of incandescent light bulbs. Also present are activities that demonstrate energy produced from PV light, wind turbine, and generators.

Cool Daylighting & Advanced Lighting — Cool daylighting is the practice of using natural light to illuminate building spaces which provides pleasing illumination at a fraction of the cost of the most efficient electric lights. Lighting incorporated into the building addition includes fluorescent lighting that measures light levels to ensure a constant level of light through out the entire great room, and LED lights which use 75% less energy than incandescent light bulbs and last 50x longer. Skylights provide the means to allow passive solar lighting into deep interior areas of the building, without heat/cooling losses.

Photovoltaic Power — Photovoltaic power (PV) uses solar cells to convert sunlight into electricity. NNC's PV system is a grid tied system made up of 84 solar panels capable of producing 14.7 kW/hr and a total energy production of 15,374 kWh/year. Excess electricity generated by our PV system is sold back to the power company.
See real-time energy gains from photovoltaic power [exit DNR]

Geothermal Heating & Cooling — NNC's system consists of a closed loop with 4 residential heat pumps with a 25 ton heating/cooling capacity. There are 4 trenches each containing 5 racetrack loops of tubing totaling close to 3 miles in length.

Recycled and Sustainable Materials — The great room and lobby area display oak and maple trim milled from trees removed during the construction and is finished with a natural interior finish. The lobby and lobby restrooms feature recycled/reflective glass tiles which help to increase lighting. The rainwater from the roof drains into the pond west of the facility and into rain barrels placed around the facility.

See Also

• Navarino Nature Center (Friends Group) [exit DNR]
• Navarino Wildlife Area