The National Tropical Botanical Gardens’ “green” building is now under construction at the headquarters in Kalaheo, states a press release from the organ-ization. A Kaua‘i-based general contracting firm, Unlimited Construction, is building the Juliet Rice Wichman Botanical Research Center which
The National Tropical Botanical Gardens’ “green” building is now under construction at the headquarters in Kalaheo, states a press release from the organ-ization.
A Kaua‘i-based general contracting firm, Unlimited Construction, is building the Juliet Rice Wichman Botanical Research Center which will be a combination herbarium, library, educational, research and conservation center.
The structure will meet nationally accepted benchmarks for design, construction and operation of a high performance “green” building, as certified by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building rating system.
LEED is a program of the United States Green Building Council.
Chipper Wichman, director and chief executive officer for NTBG, said in the release, the LEED process includes examining where building materials have come from and whether unused materials can be recycled for different uses on the job site.
Peter Robson, Unlimited’s president, said in the release, a “green” building fits in perfectly with Unlimited’s own mission of considering how to reduce, re-use, recycle and rethink traditional construction methods.
“This is key to our whole company philosophy,” he said. “This is just the beginning of the future of construction nationwide.”
The new building is expected to be completed in April 2008.
