WILDCENTER.ORG.NEWPATH

(L-R): Mark Sengenberger, APA Executive Director; Dave Goodman of Tupper Lake and Principal in green investor North Arrows, Stephanie Ratcliffe, Executive Director, Chris Rdzanek, BAGA creator and Wild Center Manager of Facilities, and Kate Fish, President of Span560 of Lake Placid in front of The Wild Center during the BAGA Conference October 3rd.

More than 160 Adirondack contractors, architects, builders and building officials filled The Wild Center’s ‘Building a Greener Adirondacks’ conference. The all-day event was designed to bring national green building experts to the Adirondacks to present and answer questions on green building.

Presentations ran from new super energy-efficient windows to lighting systems to New York State incentives for consumers and builders to switch over to efficient practices. Green building experts from as far away as Colorado came for the day-long series of presentations. A session on biomimicry, where builders copy natural systems, included a presentation on new sidings that mimic the surface of leaves so that water beads and rolls down walls, cleaning and keeping exteriors dry at the same time.

With winter fast approaching, and record heating costs anticipated, the conference’s energy-efficiency focus attracted broad attention. Attendee Jamie Giroux, the Superintendant of Buildings and Grounds at Saranac Central School said, “I’m in the planning stages of a construction project and have environmental concerns and energy efficiency in mind. I was happy to see a real cross-section of people who can effect change come together for this event.” Thomas Coakley, the head of administrative operations for St Lawrence University, was at the conference as well. St Lawrence has pledged, along with 450 other colleges and universities, to have a carbon neutral campus.

Climate change concerns and rising fuel costs appear to be driving the high-level attention now being paid to green building. According to most research on carbon pollution, buildings and the activities in them contribute close to half of all greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Cutting inefficiencies would result in huge savings in the costs of operating buildings and drops in pollution levels

Presenter, Alex Wilson, who has been involved in green building for more than 30 years, was optimistic about the future, telling attendees that green building is “no longer a niche curiosity but a trend that is going to continue.” Wilson, who is executive editor of Environmental Business News and serves on the board of directors of the U.S. Green Building Council, talked about a growing economic driver behind green building. “Builders who focus on green technologies are the ones whose phones are ringing,” he said.

Rob Lipop, a local contractor, is a self-professed beginner in green building practices and came to the event to learn more about best practices. He thinks green building “makes sense money-wise” as homeowners will “see a faster return on their investment.”

Stephanie Ratcliffe, Executive Director of The Wild Center said the event was a natural follow on the Museum’s own green building efforts. “We live in the Adirondacks, and we know what heating bills look like. We wanted to help take what we had learned with The Wild Center, and spread the word. We built an efficient building and we know lots of neighbors who want to do the same thing.”

The Wild Center was the first LEED certified museum in New York State, and is the only LEED certified facility in the Adirondacks. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and is considered the international gold standard for green buildings.

“The day was completely unique for this area,” said Kate Fish, president of the Lake Placid-based Span560, a green business consulting company. “These kinds of skills and technologies are absolutely going to be critical for anyone who plans to build or renovate. If there are incentives to use green technologies and owners asking for green buildings we have to have our builders know how to deliver that, and to have the people come here, instead of Adirondack builders needing to find them all over the country, was really special.”

Chris Rdzanek, The Wild Center’s manager of facilities organized the event. “My objective was to see if we could help contribute to cutting carbon pollution. It seemed a really good way was to help all the builders around us get a first hand look at how much is available now, and bring builders, officials and the state together under the same roof.”

Ratcliffe said Wild Center staff had been ‘overwhelmed’ by the interest this summer from visitors coming to see the Museum’s New Path exhibit that showcases Center’s green building techniques and technology.

“I think a few years ago an exhibit showing how solar power works, or composting toilets, or grass parking lots would have not have drawn so much interest,”she said. Ratcliffe said newspapers in New York and Philadelphia had even published stories about the Museum’s special Hybrid car parking spaces.

Building a Greener Adirondacks was sponsored by Curtis Lumber, Hulbert’s Tri Lakes Supply and Johnson Controls.

It was a great day at The Wild Center. More than 160 builders and contractors. We’ll post more about the day here soon. Here’s WAMC’s interviews with Conference participants.

WAMC Building a Greener Adirondacks Report

The Wild Center will host a special day in October for builders and regional leaders to learn about the newest techniques and technologies of green building. The ‘Building A Greener Adirondacks’ (BAGA) event will take place Friday, October 3rd, starting at 7:30 a.m. at The Wild Center in Tupper Lake.

It will be cohosted by The Energy $mart Park Initiative. The all-day event will feature presentations and chances for regional builders, contractors, community and institutional leaders and interested individuals to hear from experts and suppliers of green building products and technologies, including leading green-building architectural and construction firms, award-winning green product manufacturers and suppliers, and from leading research institutions such as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Clarkson University. There will also be green technology and product exhibits and demonstrations. Seminars will include presentations on current best practices and opportunities in solar power, wind power, geo-thermal, bio-mass and bio-fuel, insulation, windows, control systems, lighting and other green building topics. Conference participants will be able to take a walking lunch to look behind the scenes at The Wild Center’s green programs.

Registration is available online at www.wildcenter.org/greenbuilding . The cost for the all-day event is $65, which includes participation in more than 10 green building educational sessions to be held in the Wild Center’s Flammer and Boreal theaters, continental breakfast, a walking lunch and admission to the museum and green building exhibits.

Eligible design/construction and building industry professionals will
receive the following continuing educational benefits for attending the event:

-  Maximum of 7 NYSDOS code enforcement in-service training units

Seating for the theater presentations will be limited. The museum will remain open to the general public that day, with paid general museum admission including access to all exhibits.

In these pages we hope to invite a conversation about building in new, more efficient ways. Some of these ideas incorporate natural systems, sunlight, bacteria, plants and rain to do jobs that once were done is a more mechanical way. The story of the Adirondacks is a story of people and nature, where we have tried to find better ways to live with the rest of the natural world.

The Wild Center staff and partners had an enriching experience sorting through the options and opinions surrounding green building as we looked for ways to build The Wild Center along this new path.

We invite you to join the discussion that seems to hold promise for the future.