Rediscover Desert Living
In a region where water is precious, the fastest growing city in North America was facing a challenge: its 2001 consumption levels could not support continued growth. At this rate, Las Vegas would run out of water in seven years. With a vested interest in the health of the Las Vegas basin, the Las Vegas Valley Water District (LVVWD) had to act.
As part of a massive water conservation program, the LVVWD and the Las Vegas Springs Preserve Foundation hired AldrichPears Associates to develop an interpretive master plan for a pristine parcel of historic land in the center of the city. The resulting 180-acre Las Vegas Springs Preserve is home to several major institutions, all positioned to engage visitors with the valley's cultural and natural history and inspire action toward a sustainable future. Facilities include a Visitor Center, the state history museum, interpretive trails and the jewel of the project: The Desert Living Center....Tour The Site
The Desert Living Center offers residents and visitors the inspiration, practical strategies, and tools they need to conserve their valuable water and live sustainably in the desert. Together with Lucchesi Galati, architects, and Deneen Powell Atelier Inc., landscape architects, AldrichPears Associates played a pivotal role in developing concepts, exhibits, and programs for this one-of-a-kind facility.
Working under the theme "Rediscover Desert Living", the design team focused its efforts on 11,000 square feet of exhibit space inside a complex of five LEED rated buildings - including Nevada's first, and highest rated, platinum LEED building. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a nationally recognized rating system for high performance green buildings. At the DLC, visitors interact with playful exhibits in the sustainability gallery, consult building experts in a high-tech design lab, and get their "feet wet" in the technical training studio.
Goals
The LVVWD wanted to offer a facility that was first and foremost a community resource - one that would motivate Las Vegans to address the conservation issues they face as residents of the Mojave Desert. The challenge was to provide visitors with the knowledge and tools that would inspire and empower them to make lifestyle changes for a sustainable future, without compromising their quality of life.
The resulting Desert Living Center includes a series of large galleries which take different approaches to demonstrating sustainable design. Exhibits illustrate the benefits of recycling, conservation and alternative energy sources in a fun and interactive environment for adults and children of all ages.
Strategies for Success
The design team used a number of strategies to meet the Desert Living Center's goals and challenges.
Make it relevant
To motivate Las Vegans to protect important environmental resources, they must first value them. Understanding their dependence and impact on the environment is an important first step towards conservation. AldrichPears set out to establish each resident's place in the Mojave desert. They accomplished this by revealing vistors' connections to the desert's water cycle: the floor treatment and simple rockwork along the corridor leading to the sustainability gallery suggest the flow of a river that visitors are symbolically a part of. As a visitor bends to drink from a water fountain at the end of the corridor, they physically enter that water cycle. This critical relationship to water is dramatized further as visitors encounter lifesize acrylic depictions of the human form "filled" with water equal to the quantity of water in a human body.
By understanding their dependence on water, visitors come to realize how much they are "of" the desert, rather than simply "in" it. In appreciating the value of the desert's resources, visitors are then faced with the question of how to conserve them. The simplest and most important actions begin at home and in our day-to-day lives. The sustainability gallery's familiar icons of daily life make the concept of sustainability accessible. A cutaway motor home demonstrates alternative fuels; the interactive Smart Shopper game helps players make eco-friendly choices at the grocery store; and a kitchen, and bathroom and home workshop provide familiar environments to showcase sustainable alternatives.
Accessible to all ages
Sustainability is the balance between the needs of our environment, culture, community and economy. It may be considered an abstract concept that only adults can grasp, but through the sustainability gallery's fun, lighthearted exhibitry, the design team effectively communicates practical messages about lifestyle changes and sustainable living for young people, too. While kids come face to face with live wriggler worms in the Compost Crawl, their parents can watch video presentations and read graphic panels that look at composting household organic waste. Kids can jump on the Energy Bike to physically experience how much energy it takes to power appliances, or try their hand at building a wind turbine.
Take it further
The Desert Living Center is unprecedented in the US. By providing a setting for action-based education, the DLC is setting the standard for community partnership and environmental sensitivity. The Center's Design Lab is a resource for homeowners and building professionals, as well as curious visitors. It showcases the results of using a conservation approach in urban design and architecture. Building and landscape professionals bring their clients to visit the Design Lab to explore resources such as landscape design software, light studies with displays of artificial and natural light, and design plans for green buildings. Discussions on environmental issues carry into the Dialogue Center's relaxed and comfortable classrooms where school programs, workshops, conferences, and informal education programs take place. AldrichPears is currently working on behalf of the Las Vegas Springs Preserve to identify appropriate traveling exhibits that explore sustainablility issues in a global context as well as through various artistic media.
Lead by example
The DLC site and buildings incorporate sustainable design as an example for residents of the Mojave. Visitors can see conservation in action as they encounter interpretive sculptural elements that highlight the DLC buildings' green design features. Straw bale walls, rammed earth walls, passive cooling towers, recycled content carpets, and earth berming are part of the sustainability showcase. Outdoors, the Aldrich Pears design team developed an interpretive plan for the Center's xeriscaped demonstration garden. Lush water-smart gardens inspire and encourage desert residents to use water wisely in their own desert appropriate gardens. Immersed in green design indoors and out, visitors are continuously engaged in considering how to live more sustainably.
By basing its buildings on sustainable design principles, the DLC not only saves energy, but money too. Its operating costs are significantly lower than comparably sized buildings in Las Vegas. It achieves this by harnessing the power of wind and sun and by designing structures inspired by those of the environmentally adapted indigenous people of the Mojave.
Conclusion
The Desert Living Center offers Las Vegas residents and design professionals the inspiration, design strategies, and tools they need to profoundly influence the future of their community and the environment. As the "green movement" becomes more mainstream and more relevant each year, the DLC is positioned to become an important showcase for urban sustainability in the West. AldrichPears is proud to have played a key role in a project that will inspire and support continued community action toward a sustainable future.
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