Green to the extreme

Aldo Leopold Foundation sets standard

“Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.”
— Aldo Leopold, “A Sand County Almanac,” 1929

Architects and builders had Aldo Leopold in mind when they constructed a building for a nonprofit group dedicated to carrying out his ideals.

The Aldo Leopold Legacy Center in Baraboo is one of the most innovative green-design buildings ever constructed. The 12,000-square-foot building, built by Oscar J. Boldt Construction and designed by architecture firm The Kubala Washatko Architects Inc., is carbon neutral, produces 110 percent of its needed energy on-site and has achieved the highest Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification of any building in the world.

“We wanted to create a facility that has lessons for construction elsewhere,” said Wayne Reckard, director of business development for Kubala Washatko, Cedarburg. “It’s rare when you get a client who wants to push the envelope as much as the Leopold Foundation did.”

The center’s $3.9 million price tag could have been reduced with more traditional building techniques. But the Leopold Foundation considered a different type of accounting when planning the center.

“The foundation was very committed to the idea of understanding true ecological life cycle costs,” Reckard said, “rather than economical life cycle costs.”

One way architects and builders minimized the building’s environmental footprint was to use the 90,000 board feet of lumber harvested to make room for the center, which is within a conservation park, as building material.

Working with trees harvested from the site was a challenge, said Gregg Tucek, who was Boldt’s project manager for the center.

The trees had to be cut down, stripped by volunteers and air- and kiln-dried before they could be used in the building. The process added lead-in time that was factored into the project.

In a typical project, trees too small to be cut into boards are discarded. But Reckard said small-diameter trees were used in the center.

Tucek said the use of custom lumber created an interesting mix of traditional and modern building techniques. While the structure came together like a log cabin, cutting-edge geothermal and solar energy systems were also built into the design, he said.

“We had to figure out how to make it all fit together and look good,” Tucek said.

Leopold, a forester by trade, turned his devotion to conservation into writings that became the basis for the modern environmental movement.

From beginning to end, the construction team tried to embrace Leopold's legacy by examining the impact of all facets of its new building.

The project started with an overall “energy budget” based on the amount of available solar and geothermal energy. Designers then created a ventilation system that uses buried earth tubes to warm and cool fresh air that circulates through the center. Geothermal energy also is collected to provide radiant heating and cooling.

Another distinct architectural aspect of the building is an aqueduct that collects rainwater off of the center’s roof and channels it to a rain garden. While practical, the aqueduct also illustrates the connection between rain and earth.

All together, the Leopold Center creates a working space to carry on its namesake’s environmental mission, while illustrating those very principals in its walls and floors.

“From the beginning, we wanted to understand what the implications of Leopold’s writing was,” Reckard said, “and how you can use them in the construction of the building.”

— Dustin Block