commentBest Green Project
The LEED-Platinum Botanical Research Institute of Texas is a 70,000-sq-ft, two-story building delivered by The Beck Group, Dallas, in May 2011 without lost-time accidents.
The design team was H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture LLC, New York, and Corgan Associates Architects, Dallas.
The $22-million facility comprises two connected but unique structures. The Archive Block contains a herbarium and a library. The Think Block contains public, exhibition, educational, research and administrative space. Atop is a living roof with native plants and soils.
The facility includes rooftop photovoltaic panels, energy-recovery ventilators, a geothermal well system, significant daylighting and full-cut-off LED light fixtures.
Interiors include rapidly renewable bamboo panels and sinker cypress wood panels harvested from the Mississippi River bottom, where they had sunk more than a century ago while being transported.
Approximately 91% of the stormwater runoff from the average annual rainfall is captured and treated in a stormwater retention pond.
The pond receives water from the parking lot via adjacent bioswales; from the roof; and from the substantial underground water resources on site.
Key Players
Owner: Botanical Research Institute of Texas, Fort Worth
General Contractor: The Beck Group, Dallas
Owner's Representative: The Projects Group, Dallas
Lead Design: H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, New York
Associate Architect: Corgan Associates, Dallas
Civil: Hart Gaugler & Associates,Dallas
Structural: LA Fuess Partners, Dallas
MEP: Summit Consultants, Fort Worth, Texas
Landscape Design: Balmori Associates,New York
Irrigation Consultant: InCon-trol Water Systems,McKinney, Texas
Submitted by: Corgan Associates
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