Return to Home PageWhat would Doris do?Gardens under glass are an environmental challenge. But it is a poor
response to say: "Let's destroy it, and do
something else" because we CANNOT, as individuals or societies, do that
with our whole built environment. As a lifelong environmentalist with a keen interest in conservation and horticulture, Ms Duke would certainly want to minimize the environmental impact of her Display gardens. There's lots of ways to do that. They all cost money. Luckily, Ms Duke left over a billion dollars to enable her foundation to 'support the interests she pursued in life' (DDCF Consolidated Financial statements 2006, Note A). So they have the resources to try almost anything while fulfilling their stated mission: "preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke's properties." Duke Farms and DDCF have the space, time, and money to find a carbon-neutral way to heat, cool and preserve the original Display Gardens. Kew Gardens, London, UK: The new alpine house at Kew is entirely passively cooled. The system is under the alpine house, because it was
a new building, but in principle there'd be no reason why such a structure
couldn't be external, on a plot alongside, with something less
heat-generating than a greenhouse on top. As long as you have vents at
the top of the structure letting out the hot air, the cool air is
pulled in: this works extremely well at Kew because the alpine house is
so tall; doing something like this on a shorter structure might never
be entirely passive, but it could certainly cut costs/carbon emissions. There are a couple of links explaining Kew's "passive labyrinth" structure for cooling air underground. Other
methods of cooling are generally evaporative, blowing (or sucking)
incoming air through cellulose pads or sheets that are kept damp,
venting the hot air to the other end. Solar power can be used effectively to power fans, since the greenhouses will be hottest when it is
sunniest. What have other Gardens done for Heating?National Botanical Garden of Wales at Llanarthne The Garden of Wales uses Biomass
burners that are viewable by the public. Original "mission statement" Pages about biomass on their website are quite brief, but it is clear that education about the environmental issues in heating greenhouses is used as a positive aspect for the National Botanical Gardens. Eden Trust, Cornwall, UK The giant biomes at Eden started out with a "combined heat and power" unit burning gas, but from 2006 has been running a biomass boiler. Beyond
the article below, they don't seem to make as much of a feature of it as the National Botanical Garden of Wales at Llanarthne, I think
it's tucked away somewhere that it would be tricky to give visitors access
to. The solar arrays on the roof of the Core building at The Eden Project have a readout of the energy they are currently harvesting on display to all visitors. These initiatives can and do draw visitors, and send them away inspired. http://www.gos.gov.uk/gosw/news/newsarchive/361964/ Trelowarren Estate, Cornwall, UK Trelowarren is winning awards and
plaudits from consumer groups for running its self-catering holiday
homes (including an outdoor heated pool, which is pretty brave in the Cornish
climate) on woodchips sourced from local mill waste, and increasingly on wood from its
own estate plantings. Trelowarren may well end up supplying excess woodchip to others locally, or being part of what seems to be a burgeoning replacement for oil furnaces for home heating: if local farmers put their land under coppiced biomass growth (miscanthus, willow), Trelowarren has an industrial size chipper to process the crop. http://www.rics.org/Newsroom/Keyissues/RICSAwards/Regional/ancient_cornish_estate_wins_award_for_sustainability_120607.html http://www.smartplanet.com/reviews/leisure/10000430/overview/trelowarren-eco-cottages.htm http://www.trelowarren.co.uk/trelowarren/news/story-03-07-07.php Return to Home Page |
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