Celebrating a Decade of Doing Good for the Community, As Much as the Planet — Plano Environmental Education Center
We can’t think of a better way to launch into the new year than a celebration of strength and sustainability. This year marks the ten-year anniversary of Plano’s Environmental Education Center. A sprawling space where education is rooted amongst indigenous flora and fauna, and opens up to glass ceilings and walls and windows that extend the Texas sky landscape, the Environmental Education Center is Plano’s beacon for its city-wide sustainability vision.
With the majority of permanent educational material positioned along the garden pathways and underneath the solar-powered awnings, the space is highly-accessible and safe during for viewing.
Plano Environmental Education Center is leading the way for its city’s reputation as one of the Dallas-Fort Worth’s Metroplex greenest regions. As a tangible, educational tool, the building showcases its vision through every detail. The building received LEED Platinum status for its almost net zero footprint and community educational, environmental outreach. The City of Plano worked closely with the Environmental Education Center to learn how to manage native plant scapes, providing an even greater impact on the community by rehabilitating a nearby creek bed through natural habitat restoration.
Before you even enter the campus’ main, exterior walkway -- between walls of windows that house both the visitor’s center and research offices -- a sprawling garden invites you to explore indigeneous flora and fauna, winding between covered awnings that both provide reprieve from the Southern sun or rainy days, as to optimize the public’s ability to engage with the property all year long. The architect took these creative features as an opportunity to further curb emissions through the extension of the Center’s solar field across the awnings in the garden and parking lot; while the lot’s permeability manages the run off to decrease the load on the garden’s irrigation system, along with the gray-water recycling.
The entire property’s irrigation is managed through on-site rainwater collection. Inspired by Texas’ sprawling plains, Olp designed the Center to boast a drought-tolerant living roof atop a two-story wall of windows that reflect the sky and extend the brilliant blue landscape. The majority of educational content is stationed outside of the building, increasing its public’s access even amidst a pandemic. The buildings host workshops, public events and one of the nation’s leading Nature Explore Classrooms for kids.
Every part of the property’s construction was intentional, recycling items such as a fallen Black Willow tree on one part of the property as balance beams for the children’s area; even recycled keys, spoons and wrenches make up different types of standing musical chimes. There is minimal use of plastic with a focus on durable and natural materials, creatively utilizing compressed, recycled paper to make counters. Wood, brick, stone, wood chips and Trex are used throughout, while the Center partners with ‘Texas Pure’ to recycle the organization’s glass and plant waste for future materials. (This paragraph is referenced from The Nature Explore Classroom).
Warm tones from thick planks of pine wood and terra-cotta-colored brick line the wide walkways with glass ceilings, and wrap the complex in the feeling of walking across Texas plains. Circular cut-outs amidst the solar-powered awnings create playful patterns of shade and sun, while allowing light to spill into shadowy spaces. With a clear organization and natural flow from space to space, the design is aesthetically pleasing with a mix of colorful plants and materials that complement each other, while the property as a whole stands for everything Plano strives to be -- a working vision for its community’s sustainability and legacy.
