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I'm Norman Gilliland. >>Because Aldo Leopold was the.
founder of modern environmental ethics, we'd expect a building
named in his honor to have
surroundings, and the Aldo minimal impact on its
is a building that has gone even Leopold Legacy Center in Baraboo
It's a net zero energy use beyond that.
energy right there on site and building that takes all of its
in ultra modern ways. We're going to find out how it's
done from the executive director
Buddy Huffaker. ofWelcome to University Place.,
Buddy Huffaker: Welcome,
So the concept for this building came from where?
It really originated from the Leopold family that created the
Leopold Foundation, and I think as they saw their father's
legacy continue to grow,
father's idea of this land ethic recognized that really their
was first written in the 1940s. And so because people would show
up from all over the world on their doorstep, they began to
realize that a center that could
interest in traffic, could both help improve the experience for
visitors, but also kind of
might look in the 21st century. de>> So in a way it was a goodas
thing that they waited for the
because so much has been learned 21st century to build this
efficient use of energy, even in about the use of energy, the
Well, I think you're right. The Leopold family has always
been kind of writing and pushing
environmental movement and the modern wave of the
But certainly this moment in conservation.
with the theories and the technology to really, I think,
demonstrate how sustainable architecture and design can
really achieve the kind of goals
terms of addressing climate change, limited resources and so
forth.
four-season climate that we have >> So even in this distinctly
that uses really minimal energy, in Wisconsin, this is a building
The goal is to be net zero. iAnd in our first two years oft.
operation we haven't quite got
That's incredible. there but we're at about 90%.
Of course we set the stake out >> Which is pretty admirable.
some things. pretty far so we're learning
year. OurSo it's still our goal andach
attention at some point in time to produce all the energy we
need to run that building within
And without getting too complicated, that's just energy.
Also on the carbon side, because
where most of the building of how we managed the forest
from, we're actually blocks in the building came
So our energy performance is so good and then we've improved the
health of the forest so much
perspective, we're actually sequestering more carbon than
we're consuming over the course of a year.
And by sequestering you mean
atmosphere in the form of carbon it's not being released into the
Exactly. dioxide.
building that's drawing its energy from a local power plant
that, say, burns coal, all of the energy that it needs to run
itself comes from coal that is a
extracted somewhere else and is consumed, and all of that carbon
dioxide is going into the atmosphere.
So you're taking it from the
atmosphere, whereas with this gLegacy Center it's nothing
added.
energy, that's part of it, but >> We're collecting the sun's
have, the trees that are left in then also any shortfall that we
and so that carbon is osequestered right there on our
site. >> Well, let's have a look at
the early concept of the place
have changed. aHere's an image I gather fromt
the design phase of the Leopold Center.
This is just after we moved in.
And so you can see it's kind of a small campus-like facility.
You can see the black on the
That's our power plant, if you roof.
And you can see how we're kind will, the solar panels.
can take full advantage of the of open to the sun so that we
And what do you do then in sun's energy.
Or all the cloudy days that tend the winter?
Right. to come with the winter?
the summertime, kind of in peak Agaisolar production, we'ret in
generating excess energy, and then in the wintertime when
we're short, the balance over the course of the year evens
itself out. >> So you actually can store it
with solar cells? >> Well, interestingly enough
we chose not to store the energy
batteries or some other on site technology. require
We're connected to the
other home or commercial electrical grid just like any
So on any given day we're either building.
or buying power from the power selling power to the power plant
So in that way-- plant.
a little bit messy, Baand somewhat inefficient.ve,
So this way, again we're trying to demonstrate in all aspects of
the building what's available to
project so it doesn't have to be at least in any new construction
grid type thinking. thi>> Keep it on the grid.the
Just keep it on the grid, use the infrastructure that exists,
but add some dimensions that
and then the productivity. increase the energy efficiency
actually some household in >> So there are times when
been sold by the Legacy Center. Baraboo>> That's correct.hat has
And what does this illustrate here when we have kind of this
broad, closer look at the center.
Well here again you see the solar panel system, you can also
see kind of up by the chimney in
solar hot water system. frSo that's another type of a
renewable energy production system where we heat all the
water that we use in the
And then it also shows with the buchimney itself that we dom.
harvest dead fall wood and we do
over the course of the year to burn about two cords of wood
So it kind of shows you all the different forms of energy that
we're using right there.
from solar and from wood and >> So you can enumerate this
So there would be two forms what of solar.rces?
One is what it called photovoltaic or kind of the
traditional solar panel that
into electricity as we kind of actually converts the sunlight
Then there is solar hot water which takes a collector and
warms that up and then liquid flows through there and so it's
a kind of water transfer. So that would be for taking
showers or washing dishes and those kinds of things.
And then wood would be the third
And so is the idea that this form.
homeowners who might be able to cdo the same kind of thing on ar
maybe slightly smaller scale? >> Yeah, I think the facility
all told in kind of usable space
total square footage is about 13,000 square feet, and the waye
it was designed there are technologies that work for a
residential scale and there are technologies that work for a
commercial scale. So it kind of goes back and
forth and we can help use that
the building community to think kind of anew about how and what
can be done in terms of green building.
Let's look at Aldo Leopold
There he is looking very relaxed himself for a minute.
What was the state of energy but watchful at the same time.
He died in 1948, right before A Sand County Almanac conservationbecameg his life?
such a big success. >> Correct.
Well, of course, Leopold himself
of really the first early voices is our inspiration and was one
humanity was going to relate to the natural world, and that, in
fact, most of our wealth comes
way, shape or form. And his big concept was the land
ethic where people are part of
apart from the biological the biolocommunity.unity not
And so it was really his
as part of an address to the challenge that he wrote actually
campus at the University of EnWisconsin Madison that he on
delivered in 1938 where he
history is to live on a piece of wrote, "The oldest task in human
That's 1938. land without spoiling it."
pressing matter it is now but he So energy was not the kind of
not being very cautious with how was clearly aware that we were
and so I don't think he would have been surprised that we find
ourselves in this quandary at this point.
And in a minute we'll look at a before and after at woods that
have been harvested by people from the Leopold Center.
Let's look at the center itself again here and see what kind of
insight we can get from this. This obviously is more of a
conceptual piece. >> Right.
This has been one of the really interesting aspects as an
ecologist conservationist to be involved with building a
building. And early on, as the family and
the Leopold Foundation kind of
building a center that would came up with this idea of
and research into Leopold and his ideas and applications of
the land ethic in the 21st
ourselves where's the bar? century, we begin to ask
of demonstrating what, in fact, What doa land ethic is?n terms
And so beginning with this idea that we could build a building
out of trees that he planted, generate all of our energy on
site, collect rainwater on site,
setting the bar for ourselves wand seeing how close we couldf
get to achieving the vision that
again that we thought was left we had set out for ourselves,
Well that's an interesting to us by Leopold.
us wouldn't think about in terms dimension that I think most of
design of our home is conserving of energy conservation in the
construction of the home by not importing materials from distant
places. >> Yeah, this is a thing that's
becoming, I think gaining interest, if you will.
There's the certified products
or forest certified products, abut the other really importantc
aspect in the dimension is
keep that loop as tight as buying locally and trying to
perspective, from an ecological perspective and even from an
economic perspective. So we were presented with a
really unique opportunity in
'40s what inspired Leopold to write his book, A Sand that, of course in the '30s and
Almanac, was really his own effort to restore the family
farm along the Wisconsin River. >> Right, he had bought that
farm, as I understand it, in a
Yeah it was, from the soil very depleted state.
worth of sand. profile down, about 400 feet
soils. So not your good agricultural
the property before him had tried to make a go of it with
corn and beans and wheat and
And so he picked it up for the oats and just couldn't do it.
about kind of restoring it to basome kind of land health.set
Planted thousands and thousands of trees.
He would plant 3,000 trees
A thousand white pine, a year.
and a thousand jack pine. Now, he purchased the farm in
the mid-1930s, and you probably remember that at that point the
Dust Bowl was upon us.
And so the first five years, >> Yes indeed, sure.
planted literally died. all o>> Hot and dry.t they
Hot and dry.
family to come back out that But somehow he inspired the
trees and the climate began to fifth year, plant another 3,000
take hold. change and their trees began to
manage this farm that is really Soone of the, along with theto
arboretum here, one of the
projects in the country. oldest ecological restoration
the trees that the family Anplanted actually were nothat
fairing so well because they
And so by doing a modest were too close together.
improve the health of the thinnremaining trees.ually
That's often true.
talking about, as a girl or a I young woman, the family outey
there planting these thousands
been kind of an adventure, of trees which seemed to have
As was having five children I suppose.
Yeah, a built-in workforce. You bring up one of the really
kind of fun parts of the story. All five of the Leopold children
are prominent ecologists or have
We've lost three of them. But they understand ecology and
so Carl Leopold, in particular, who was a plant physiologist and
part of the vision for this new facility, we told him that we
were thinking about doing a thinning of the trees that he
planted in order to both leave
the building materials for the the healthier ones and then have
said you could also not cut any new buildinof them.ghed and he
And here's a plant physiologist who knows a dead tree when he
sees one and it just represents,
the family has of this I think, what a wonderful story
also this emotional approach to scientific appit.ch to land but
It can be hard to separate. For example, if you look at
these logs, these are logs
the '30s. planted>> That's correct.hen in
And in a way it's hard not to react negatively and say look
those are good sized trees that have all been cut down.
But you're saying that the ones remaining are going to be that
much bigger and healthier.
their kind of knowledge and understanding, now that they
look at the forest everybody
But it's just that initial, I spent all that time planting
those.
cause because now they're really, literally, part of the
Leopold legacy. >> Right, right.
And I think nobody is more proud
and what we were able to of the facility than the family
always say people often refer to achieve, and to take a tree, I
and I say, yeah, to think that Leopold as quite a visionary,
building for us. 70 years ago he planted this
Now is this next image some of >> Yeah, very convenient.
All of the planing or whatever the actual work on site?
trees into lumber was done on the process wsite?be of turning
Not all of it.
portable sawmill in so that those materials would never have
to leave the site.
taking these big 10 x 12s, We would save all the energy of
and planing them and 10 x 14s off somewhere else
So all that happened on site. For the interior finish material
that would be flooring and
did have to dry that so that the paneling and ceiling decking, we
that it would be stable. moisture would come out of it so
sawmill, Samsel Sawmill up in So tHancock, Wisconsin.mily
So all of that material lasts,
all it ever made from forest to afinish to building material.
Should I assume that you're not using a lot of particle
board in the construction.
We try to use our material as much as possible..
Where we weren't able to use
material or other kind of green certified materials that would
be keeping with the spirit of the project.
Here's another conceptual look, or at least it gives us an
idea of design and purpose. >> Well I think what you also
begin to realize is that the way
materials relative to the way we we kind of generate building
feedback looped to that anymore. design, there's very little
will design a building and then Anthe contractor gets the partr
list and goes down to the building supply material and
says hey, deliver all this next week.
We didn't have that luxury. Our challenge was to give to the
architect and the engineer
going to design a building that here's can utilize that. are you
When was the last time that was done?
It's probably been decades
That's how all building orused to be done..
So it was a really interesting
architect and engineering perspective to really understand
what it would take to utilize local materials in a really
significant way.
at some of the materials that >went into the building of thisk
Legacy Center.
there: Leopold. >> Well the family, the Samsels,
were really terrific. They, in essence, set their
operation aside for a year as they processed our 50,000 board
feet of material that went
And so here you see, we saw the trees being taken down with the
forester equipment and now you
the beginnings of building see them in the yard and then as
So how long was the process from ground breaking to
completion so that you could
From ground breaking to completion was about a year but
the timber harvest started a
To let it dry you mean? >> To let it dry and just make
sure we could get the material
So kind of a two-year window out of the woods.
And then really from conception to move-in was just shy of seven
years.
organization like ours, a fair And of course for an
associated with securing the part of it is the fundraising
So it was a pretty complex resources to build it.
once we really got started project and process but kind of
quickly. things really came together
leap to Lambeau and figure out >> Well now let's make kind of a
Lambeau Field, I can't imagine a what's connection between
different from the Leopold place that would be much
Well I love to use this graphic because when I say
50,000 board feet, what does
Not much to most people. that mean to you?
football field or Lambeau Field covered end zone to end zone,
side line to side line, one-inch
those that came off of our thick in wood, we had two of
used in the building. So it's just a way to give some
scale of kind of one of Wisconsin's most beloved sites,
Lambeau Field, with one that we hope will be even more beloved,
the Leopold shack and farm and
How many acres are we talking tabout of timber harvest?
Well actually all of that came off of a relatively limited
amount. Probably about 50 or 60 acres
all told. >> And you got enough to cover
Lambeau twice over? >> Now remember what they call a
board foot is kind of one inch
So a big timber that's 10 by 14 tand 20 feet long, that ends up.
having quite a fewer board feet in it.
And then I think as we'll see in
siding is oak from the site. later pictures, all the exterior
We have a lot of ceiling We have a lot of flooring.
So all of that came off just a decking.
So two Lambeau Field's worth. Still pretty impressive.
Now here we have an image of a
looked at this ahead of time I before and after, and when I
having, I thought it was almost a stereoscope thing going here
except for the different color
picture. of the coat of the person in the
before and after harvesting this But you're telling me this is
That's exactly right. So it shows you really how
sensitive we were to leaving the
little volume we took out of the best trees in the field and how
50,000 board feet or two Lambeau woods in order to get this
And so we use this picture just to demonstrate that we're not
talking about a clear cut here, we're really talking about very
selective thinning that leaves
done with it. tha>> So do you categorize or're
assess or somehow count the amount of material you have
after you've cut these trees
board foot estimate while downthey're still standing? of a
A little bit of both. Most of that was calculated when
we marked the trees in the field
good tree and I was a bad tree to, again, find, if you were a
forester that I'm the one to cut we'd mark me and tell the
And as we did that, we would down and to leave you.
of how much volume would come scale the off of it.et a sense
We'd also take what they call diameter at breast height.
That's how big around a tree is at breast height on an average
individual. So we'd put that in a computer
and then our ecologist would
tree was and so how long, what scale how tall he thought the
the first and most valuable log out of the tree would be, ands
then the next one, and in the cases where we might get a third
one, how big that might be. And so then he used that.
He had this master list that
members we think we'd have this wouldbig and then this bigw many
and then this big.
architect and the engineer to use to kind of do the final
design. And then we had to come back and
around and kind of fact check all of that once they had done
their preliminary design and we had begun milling the members to
see what we thought would give
the time we cut the tree down uand got it off the mill wasn't
quite measuring up. So there was a lot of
information that went into the
balances along the way. >> How much of the tree did you
actually use? >> This is kind of an
interesting part. We would go up as far as we
could and get anything, we'd
probably just discard but we even take what most people would
get some paneling out of it, would take and still utilize and
And then Steve Swenson, our ecologist, came up with the idea
that we still had some tops and even some major branches here
and there that could be utilized.
So he worked with the Forest
the US Forest Service Research Products Lab here in Madison,
using a new innovative technique and Design Lab, and they were
chemicals. to make pulp which did not use
to them. So we brought the material down
otherwise use, we brought down So the scraps that we couldn't
and then it went up to Stevens here, they turned it into pulp
They made paper out of it and then we printed A Sand Point at the paper making lab.
Almanac on paper made from trees that Leopold had C planted.
You can't beat that for efficiency.
Now, are these the solar panels?
So this is our power plant and >> That's right.
energy we thought we would be eable to produce given the size
of the building that we anticipated and the roof area
and those kind of things. So then that became our energy
budget. And as opposed to more
traditional projects, even ones that intend to use solar energy,
usually you kind of figure out
to do and then you figure how much energy it's going to take.
You say holy smokes, that's a lot of energy.
Well, let's put a couple solar
project will address it. panels up and maybe the next
budget that we had to work For us, we really used that as a
So that began to influence both the architectural design as well
as the engineering of the facility.
So again you're designing it
case, but energy available. from,>> Exactly, exactly. this
Again trying to find where the
such project and using those to guide the process as opposed to
just the demand side. We were coming from a little bit
the supply side as opposed to the demand side.
Now is this image here
solar use? another example of a design of
an architectural perspective, >>how we began to address theom
challenges that we were going to
And what you begin to see is face from an energy perspective.
And so on the right-hand side you see the workshop which is.
where we keep our tractor and trucks and chain saws and all of
that. We decided that we didn't have
to heat and cool that space because it was just housing
equipment, and that saved a bunch of energy.
Then in the bottom you see what we call the seed hall.
This was actually modeled after Nina Leopold's sleeping porch.
And we wanted to have a big gathering space where we could
fit 100 people or so, but we
people on a regular basis and really not in the wintertime.
So this basically a glorified three-seasons screened in room
that has a wood stove in it and storm windows so we can use it
from early spring to late fall
shutter it up and it's not an and iambient energy drop.just
And then the last kind of wing
meeting hall. So we wanted to have one space
where we could have groups and
Relatively small. >> Relatively small and since
it's off on its own it has its
So at any given day if we're not own mechanical system.
a little bit colder than the using it in the wintertime it's
In the summertime it's a little bit warmer than the rest of the
building. And when we're going to use it
we just turn the system on and
Now I gather you don't have issues such as houses can that
have been built in the last 10
so tight, the windows are so air or 15 years or so where they're
tight that you get mold growing tight anon the walls?re so air
Yeah, we haven't had that problem.
I suppose one of the benefits that we had is we fell in a
commercial building category so they have a lot more stringent
requirements on air flow and air
So we haven't suffered that problem which has been a real
problem in the kind of
Yeah, I had a fireplace in residential construction arena.
built I think as long ago as the one of my houses that had been
a fire in the fireplace I actually had to open a window or
a door slightly to get it to
I thought that was a little paradoxical.
That's kind of the
almost got over-aggressive on insome of those regulations.of
So what have we here? >> Well this is just a picture,
then, of the workshop or the
And you begin to see how the garage.
themselves so that we can treat spthem accordingly.ate
You can also see here from a
that siding is black oak that mcame off of the property.of
So you're working with, if I
said the Leopold's planted back rin the '30s, oak and pine?u
Primarily, there's a little bit of cherry that we harvested
and then some red maple, but
resources that we had. primarily oak and pine were the
guide, let's say, for what trees >> What was Aldo Leopold's
first place? he would plant there in the
Norman. The whole science of ecological,
restoration was just beginning
arboretum. with Leopold's role in the
and kind of information that we And have now about what theuxury
landscape would have looked like
conversion. prSo he was really looking atral
several things. One being what could grow in
hot, dry conditions that the
What would mitigate soil region was experiencing.
kind of conservation concern at ethe time, mainly from wind.y
And then finally, what was
Sure, you have to think about that too.
With five children and single income resources weren't
excessive in the Leopold family.
from the state nursery and So he got a lot of his material
red pines and jack pines that's, in part, why white and
So they met all of those dominated what he planted.
They grew fast, they would criteria.
were relatively inexpensive, if mnot free at times, from theey
state.
cover for game and those kinds And ecologically, they provided
But his understanding and concern and sensitivity to
diversity also led him to plant oaks and maples and other kind
of wildlife habitat.
still do dominate the landscape. But the pines really did and
if I remember right. >> Pines like sandy soil anyway,
I got a kick out of reading A Sand County Almanac
some years ago. It was after I already had a
landscaper, on his own
in my front yard. And it wasn't more than a couple
years had passed before I had a very lumpy yard with a lot of
bare spots under that maple. I
something to the effect of, well, for some reason people
insist on planting Norway maples
know they're going to kill them. in their yards even though they
landscaper that he didn't know And I thought what's with this
Well, a lot of us are still catching up with Leopold and
some of the insights and
And it continues to fascinate me understandings he had.
what a rich knowledge of ecology how insightful he was and really
residential landscapes as well he had, both kind of in urban
Right, that's the kind of thing I didn't expect in
Sand County was to talk about actually urban landscapes,
as well.
Here's a look from the inside Iout of the Leopold Legacy.
Center. >> Right.
So here's the three-season
And again you can see that the space.
So lots of the windows and then those are storm windows so they
can come off and we have
You can see the long timbers in the roof and those are, again,
the very trees that Aldo and the
'40s. famAnd this is kind of veryand
interesting structural
it turns out, when you make a etwo by four, you're actuallys
cutting off the strongest part
Really? >> So if you think about it, I
hadn't really thought about it, but when you do think about it
the tree is really living from
And the heart wood is basically kind of considered dead.
And so it's that living part of the tree that's actually the
strongest part, which intuitively makes sense but you
just don't think about. So an eight-inch round log is
actually stronger than a 10 by
So again we worked with the Forest Products Lab, and they
helped us come up with
relatively small trees and get strategies to utilize these
them. greaAnd it also kind of thent of
demonstrates from an ecological and economic perspective, if we
could utilize our forest
advantages that everybody would resourcget out of that.ind of
So what are you using these logs for?
For braces, for beams, for
Or are you actually making log support?
These are trusses that they structkind of created.ility?
So it's a network of the logs that create a kind of structural
skeleton that then the roof just
What part of the facility is sits on top of.
So this is the meeting hall, this?
year-round. It's a really beautiful interior
and we've had groups from all over the country come and have
retreats and think-tank sessions
So that's the space, again, that here.
So it's kind of connected to the has its own mechanical system.
again we only have to heat and main part of the building, but
I don't see a chimney. cool it when it's in use.
smokestack on there. >> There is actually a little
but it's mainly meant to radiate We have a wood stove in there,
there's not a big thermal mass the heat out into the space so
the main part of the building. of the chimney like there is in
Franklin stove? >> It's similar.
I think it's a slightly different brand but same
concept.
Much more efficient than a >> Same design.
I think with a fireplace fireplace.
is supposed to go straight up somethingthe chimney. the heat
Exactly.
there. >> Franklin was on to something
his time. >> >> What do we have here? of
This just kind of shows then
buildings come together. the overview of how the
spaces. The main building with the solar
panels on it is used year-round,
walls and thick ceiling for good and so that has extremely thick
And we also, then, ended up using this as a site advantage.
So we have gardens and little kind of outdoor spaces that
connect to each of these
inside comes out and the outside buildings as well so that the
Had that kind of flow. comes in.
your surroundings. So that you're never far from
So you continue to harvest >> Exactly.
Yeah, but mainly that comes from, in our neck of the woods
we have a lot of oak trees that suffer from oak wilt and so just
modest harvest. Again, two cords of wood for
10,000 square feet is not much. I use more than that in my own
home that's about 2,000 square
It was built in 1917. And we don't have the problem
with being too tight. You can feel the draft through
the home. So we do continue to just kind
of harvest dead fall and trees
and those kind of things. >> So what kind of trees would
have gone into this part of the facility?
Well here, again, anything
dimensional is a Leopold pine. that's kind of big and
red maple that came out, and The ceiling decking here is the
because in this part of the state and really the eastern
half of the United States a lot of our oak woods are
transitioning to maple or soft
And it's a problem, both wood.
least at the moment, doesn't economically, because maple, at
value that oak does. have the same kind of market
kind of like your example of And then ecologically, maples,
much more shade at the ground layer, and that's part of what
you were experiencing is it shades out the grass, that it
shades out the wildflowers. And maples, as opposed to oaks,
aren't as good of wildlife
So we were able to demonstrate, again, a use of red maple that
most markets aren't taking
Here you see these doors are advantage of.
showing is also how we get solar cherry, and part of what this is
that we don't have to use as daylight into the building so
So that's one of the ways we much task lighting.
days we don't have to have many save considlights on.rgy is most
All the light is provided by the
Also, this corridor shows you how we keep the heat in the
wintertime. And so you see during the day
the sunlight is penetrating through the windows and so we
open up these doors and windows and the heat kind of comes into
the occupied space. And then at night, when we would
lose all that heat through the
I can't help thinking that windows, we close all of these.
ideas that have fallen by the the 18th-19wayside.ry had some
Once you get away from the
condition and that you're csticking with the idea ofir
working with light and shade and
can live comfortably with a air pretty simple design., you
You're exactly right. So here's the most novel way
that we save energy.
windows. When it's nice out, we open the
We still do most of the time in And our homes but commercialner.
buildings often have inoperable windows.
That's right. >> So even if it's 70 degrees
outside and you want it to be 70
either the heating or cooling to degrees inside, you have to run
Well, in our building we just open up the windows and let that
air move through. But that's not high tech, that's
old school. >> That's common sense.
Is this part of the heating system?
Yeah, so we heat and cool the building with geothermal
systems.
delivered through a radiant floor, and that's driven by 200
geothermal wells that go down,
that go down about 200 feet. I'm sorry, 20 geothermal wells
A relative of mine in Maryland >> That amazes me.
backyard. And I thought, you're going down
200 feet, do you even own that
Well the state does have a far down?
process to make sure you're operating appropriately down
there.
just take the ambient energy of the earth and bring that up and
deliver it to your floor. In the summertime you're taking
the kind of coolness of the earth out, and in the wintertime
you're taking the warmth out. You're kind of exchanging that.
But then the kind of more, and
commonplace and very efficient this is becoming more and more
the earth is 55 degrees and it's because if the ambient energy of
long ways to where you want to zero outside, you're already a
But one of the more innovative get it.
our fresh air because commercial things we did is how we treat
just as we talked about to have bthis air exchange so that youts
don't get mold, you don't have
And so we use a kind of modified indoor air quality problems.
these concrete pipes under the geothermal system where we use
through this, basically a sewer ground and winlet.g the air in
The air travels underground at a
So if it's zero degrees outside, really low speed.
building into our air handler to by the time it gets into the
it's 55 degrees. go somewhere in the building,
gets pretty cool. LSo it's being done a lot init
Europe but a little bit more
will, for North America. cutting-edge, I guess if you
this air? >>> It's a very small fan, ande
that's one of the benefits by making the building so efficient
we were able to use a fan about one-fourth the size that we
otherwise would have needed to
building. kin>> This is another winter the
differential I suspect here.
learned and part of the reason >> One of the things we've
zero from an energy perspective is I think as you find out solar
panels are rated a little bit like your car in terms of miles
per gallon. >> A little bit of wishful
thinking built in.
that performance if you drive 55 >> Yeah, probably you can get
topography, those kind of miles an hothings.stantly, no
So I think what we estimated we would get based on the
manufacturer's information and
some discrepancy there. whaSo we're learning that.e's
And then the other thing we've
the last couple of winters we've suffered kind of the hard way is
snow fall, and if you remember had extremely high levels of
2007-2008. back to that winter of
Yeah. That's a lot of snow to clear
off a roof, as we learned.
would do differently if we had So maybe some of the things we
maybe have a steeper pitch, but those are the things you learn
as you embark on these kind of
The steepness of the pitch challenges.
shape of what's inside and then, of course, affects the
heating and cooling. creates other issues in terms of
And there were two things that >> You're exactly right.
One was kind of the functionality and what it did
inside, but also some of it was aesthetic and not getting these
kind of contorted pitches.
this effort planning in And, again,2000-2001.we started
We recognized energy was going
even sure we appreciated how to be important, but I'm not
happen over the last kind of important and kind of what would
And so if we were starting this project now or even right before
we moved in, maybe we would have
systems or something else like had stand alone solar panel
But at that time we wanted the that.
kind of be co-mingled and be aesthetics and the functions to
So have other facilities, elhouses or even commerciall.
institutions, been patterned
Well we've had people literally come from all over the
world to see kind of what we did
And so I do think we're having and how we did it.
performance buildings are being designed and constructed and
operated. Of course, this community is
really fortunate in that
Monastery has actually exceeded the us in green performancesdom
by one point. And so this area really can
boast that it has the two most
world at the moment. sustainable buildings in the
to see the interest and the Ssynergies get created, and ofg
course all along our goal was to
that many more people jumped set the bar high and then hope
Well, here's Aldo Leopold kind of thinking about that bar
as he looks out over the
You get the sense of Aldo Leopold even here is this
visionary.
I think he challenged us with this concept of a land ethic and
reminded us that all of our kind
from the natural world, and that of health and wealth derives
responsibility to it and to ourselves to take care of it.
And we keep going back to his line from this campus in 1938
that the oldest task in human history is to live on a piece of
land without spoiling it. And I think that's the challenge
in front of us now and for
Well, continued success with future generations.
Buddy Huffaker. >> Thank you.
Thank you for being with me today for University Place.
I'm Norman Gilliland and we've
Leopold Legacy Center and its bextremely efficient use of
energy and cutting-edge technology and some plain old
common sense. And Buddy Huffaker
is the executive director of the Aldo Leopold Foundation.
I'm Norman Gilliland, I hope you
University Place can join me next time for
.