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Park City’s Swaner EcoCenter provides an informative and insightful look at sensational sustainable design.
Close your eyes and imagine a locale not far from Salt Lake City where you can watch sandhill cranes soar, moose forage and red foxes scamper—all from the temperate comfort of a new high-style structure surrounded by 1,200 acres of pristine, natural open space. Sound like a dream? Yes, but it exists.
Swaner EcoCenter, located on the outskirts of Park City, is a 10,000-square-foot facility whose mission is to teach people about environmental awareness and to foster a respect for the natural world. It achieves this by inviting the public to enjoy interactive exhibits and education programs inside the building, as well as guided nature walks, snowshoe tours and stargazing outside.
“There is no more important time in history to be thinking about our impact on the earth,” says principal architect Søren Simonsen, former principal and lead designer at Cooper Roberts Simonsen Associates. “The building itself is a teaching tool. Building elements and systems are visible and transparent and presented so that visitors can glean ideas and insights into what might be possible to make their homes or workplaces work better with nature.”
The two-story structure is evocative of the farm buildings that once dotted the landscape. The designers added a contemporary flair to the four-story observation tower and the main entry using clean lines and abundant windows. The slatted wood siding on the tower is a nod to the area’s agrarian roots and also provides glimpses of the landscape as you ascend to the observation deck.
The building touts the coveted LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum Certification, a prestigious honor held by only a few dozen buildings in the U.S. and just one other in Utah.
“There’s this great cycle of life in this place, and we wanted the building to be that, too,” says Kathy Wheadon, principal at CRSA and project manager. “Everything had to tie together.”
She and Simonsen designed the new facility, located at New Park Town Center near Park City, as part of a nonprofit land trust in the Snyderville Basin.
In 1957, Leland S. Swaner purchased the land on which the EcoCenter now sits and made it into a cattle ranch. His family turned it into a preserve in 1992 after Leland died, and moved 600 planned residential units to other locations.
“We learned that open space and real estate development are not mutually exclusive,” says Sumner Swaner, Leland’s son and president of the board of the Swaner EcoCenter. “We put the open space under conservation easements to offset the tax costs of other development.”
Sumner worked as a wildlife and fisheries ecologist for Utah in the early ’70s, and later worked in environmental planning and landscape architecture. “My core values are steeped in ecology,” he says. “It’s this notion that humans can strive to have a more harmonious existence with nature.”
Embracing this sentiment, the architects focused their innovative design on the four elements of the natural world: sun, earth, air and water.
WATER Above and below ground, cisterns collect 10,000 gallons of storm water, which is used to flush the toilets and irrigate the landscape. “We wanted it to be a tapestry of building systems, where visitors can see the snow or rain that falls on the roof and the snowmelt systems that melt the snow and fill the cisterns,” Wheadon says.
The team reduced the overall water used inside the structure by installing low-flow faucets and fixtures. Pervious concrete, a porous material used in the parking lot and sidewalks, allows water to pass through. “Rather than diverting all the water through storm water systems and parking lots, it goes right into the ground and recharges the groundwater systems naturally,” Simonsen says.
AIR The architects designed operable windows throughout, strategically placing them to maximize cross breezes, cooling the building naturally. “It’s a custom heating and cooling system that takes advantage of the local micro-climate, as opposed to taking an off-the-shelf approach,” says Simonsen.
The observation tower’s windows draw cooler air from the first floor inward and upward. Nontoxic paints and adhesives finish the building. Systems monitor carbon monoxide to assure that the air inside the building is as healthy as the air outside.
EARTH CRSA used resources like sorghum stalks in cabinetry, sunflower husks for wood panels and bamboo on the floors and cabinetry, all rapidly renewable wood products.
Reclaimed timber was used for large structural columns and trusses. Big-D, the general contractor, aggressively recycled waste during the construction process to keep excess materials and packaging like cardboard, plastic, wood and metals from ending up in landfills.
The multiple-story design reduced the building’s footprint, and a convertible indoor state-of-the art theater has disappearing walls and fold-up theater seating, all designed to get more out of less space and land and conserve precious resources.
SUN Photovoltaic roof panels, located on the south-facing roof of the building, convert the sun’s light energy into electricity. The remainder of electricity supplied to the building comes from certified renewable energy sources.
Another type of panel, part of a hydronic system, uses the sun’s heat to produce hot water as well as radiant floor heating throughout. The exhibit hall features glazed wall panels that allow natural light into the building, as well as overhangs that shade sunlight during the heat of the day.
Swaner lives in a historic home on the edge of the preserve that was part of the family’s ranching headquarters for three decades. For him, the center is a place of real solace. “It’s like a home to me. I get reflective, relax and enjoy the moment. I’m lucky.”
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