Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
5.2.1.1 Project overview/objectives
The Visitor Centre and its living roof at the VanDusen Botanical Garden is an
example of a holistic building concept, where stormwater management was only
one of the many, interconnected project objectives. Comprehensive in both
design and process, the landmark project resulted from a successful collaboration
between consultants in the ields of architecture, landscape architecture and
ecology (see Table 5.1  and Figure 5.1 ).
The integrated and collaborative design followed four overarching objectives
(Hahn Oberlander and Larsson 2013):
1 Education: communicate the importance of plant conservation and biodiver-
sity.
2 Demonstration: provide a living example of what it means to be a botanical
garden in a modern society.
3 Performance: foster a relationship between building and ecological systems.
4 Identity: celebrate the concept of nature in the city.
Based on the traditional botanical garden and the philosophy that it is a symbol
for the human place in the natural world, the VanDusen Botanical Garden Visitor
Centre is organized into plant classiications based on research and education,
medicinal and food plants of horticultural signiicance, as well as aesthetic
beauty. The state-of-the-art Visitor Centre re-connects people to current environ-
mental issues, including water and energy conservation, reuse and recycling,
beauty of native plant ecology, and the design of healthier building processes
and products.
The VanDusen Visitor Centre project is a clear example of a comprehensive LID
approach, as rooftop runoff is collected and processed in at-grade SCMs and in
an underground drywell, which supplies greywater use inside the building.
The ive-acre project site, building and roof is designed to exceed LEED Plat-
inum and is registered for the Cascadia Green Building Council's LBC 2.0,
which strives to deine the highest measure of sustainable design. All construc-
tion details, materials and speciications were carefully scrutinized and devel-
oped to relect the criteria of the LBC for a healthier way of building and
design.
5.2.1.2 Materials
The living roof was built from locally sourced and reused materials to meet LBC
2.0 requirements. Red-list materials (a list of materials containing chemicals
deemed harmful to plants, animals and humans, e.g., PVC products) were
avoided. The LBC net-zero requirements meant implementing water and
energy infrastructure, including a cistern, rock ballast (blue roof), chambers
and vaults for an on-site bioreactor, vertical solar chimney, and hot water solar
tubes. This infrastructure had an impact on the roof design and available
planted area.
 
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