Sustainability Center

The Outreach Center is an educational learning experience designed to introduce sustainable initiatives including a geothermal heating and cooling system, solar thermal panels, solar photovoltaic panels, wind turbine, biomass electrical generator, and water reclamation ponds. Students experience an introduction to sustainable practices, LEED program, and view firsthand the functional concepts of these efforts.  Visitors will venture into a nonconventional, energy-neutral classroom and delve into the internal workings of each renewable-energy system.    

This space is air conditioned with a pond-loop geothermal system and utilizes captured rainwater to irrigate landscape beds and flush the toilet.   

Energy consumption is the primary cause of climate change, and buildings use about 50% of all the energy consumed in the United States. Thus, buildings are the main cause of climate change, and they use energy primarily for heating, cooling, and lighting all of which are all greatly impacted by the sun.  Solar responsive design can significantly reduce this energy demand by harvesting the winter sun for heating, by rejecting the summer sun to reduce the cooling load, and by collecting a small amount of quality daylight year-round to replace most of the electric lighting used during daylight hours.

Successful solar responsive design requires a thorough understanding of solar geometry and its impact on design.  Heliodons can teach developers, builders, and architects the basic concepts that will allow them to design low-energy solar-responsive buildings and communities. Heliodons can also convince potential owners to request solar responsive design and then see the validity of a particular design. They are powerful tools for demonstrating the potential and logic of solar responsive design to people of any age or education level.