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| ‘Green design’ planned for Kentucky ag center |
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By TIM THORNBERRY
Kentucky Correspondent HARRODSBURG, Ky. — The announcement of the location for the Kentucky Agriculture Heritage Center came a year ago at the State Fair. This year, plans are on track to make the center a reality including a unique design.
The building will be a state-of-the-art sustainable structure incorporating facilities to showcase Kentucky agriculture’s past and present with a focus on building a strong future.
Sustainable design, also known as green design, seeks to lessen a structure’s impact on the environment through energy and resource efficiency while enhancing the health and comfort of building occupants. The basic objectives of green design are to reduce consumption of non-renewable resources, minimize waste and create healthy, productive environments.
The 300,000-square-foot Ag Center will house agriculture artifacts and museum objects, and also highlight Kentucky’s agriculture leaders.
The Center will also focus on education with interactive exhibits, a learning center, research facilities, and an auditorium for lectures and presentations.
The Center is designed with extensive meeting facilities to allow for agriculture conventions or meetings as large as 1,000 or as small as 20.
The Center will also be complete with a full-service food facility with indoor and outdoor seating.
“This could be one of the first facilities in the U.S. that is focused on sustainability from initial design,” explained Isaac Gilliam, the lead architect on the project.
“We also make extensive use of natural ventilation in the building design to help control the indoor environment. We do this by making use of air coming in and going out of the facility at the highest points.”
The Center is designed to use wind turbines and solar panels to produce 100 percent of the energy required for operation. It will also use a geothermal system and highly efficient heat pumps to allow for the reduction in energy use throughout the facility.
The building will have automatic controls on key energy-using devices, such as lighting, to help reduce energy consumption as well as incorporating a gray water system, which will capture roof runoff water for use in the toilets.
“The intent of this design was to capture the ag spirit in Kentucky,” explained Gilliam, “From the forms of the steep-pitched gabled roofs and shapes of the farm, to the focus on preserving our agriculture resources through the sustainable design.”
Asphalt or concrete will not be used on the site but rather a gravel and grass paving system, which will allow water to penetrate through the surface and go back into the ground. Some of this filtered water will be directed into a lagoon for on-site irrigation.
The center is expected to open in 2010 in time for the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games at the Kentucky Horse Park.
This farm news was published in the Aug. 22, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
| 8/22/2007 |
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