Wyoming’s LSR Preserve

Transforming a piece of history with engineering science

A new visitors’ center in Grand Teton National Park replaces the aging Rockefeller Preserve and brings a new level of sustainability to the park’s infrastructure.

By Melissa Leslie

Photo by David J. Swift

Wyoming has added a platinum notch to its LEED belt with the fall completion of an award-winning visitors’ center in the Tetons.

Construction of the Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve Visitor Center allowed Grand Teton National Park officials to open a network of trails and three restroom buildings to visitors in early November. Although the 7,573-sq-ft visitors’ center itself won’t be open to the public until summer, it has already become a site of interest through its award-winning engineering and by attaining LEED-platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

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The LSR Preserve, a gift from the Rockefeller family valued at about $160 million, was designed to give visitors an opportunity to experience nature, as well as tell the story of how the Rockefeller family, working with the National Park Service, donated land to establish Grand Teton National Park and contributed to the American conservation movement.

Environmental Stewardship

“It was an incredible project on a beautiful site,” says John Carney, principal from Carney Architects of Jackson Hole, Wyo. “We were especially attracted to being light on the land and creating a focus on stewardship toward the environment. It really created a higher purpose in our design and became a contemplative and almost spiritual endeavor.”

Rockefeller intended for the preserve to serve as a catalyst for appreciation and reverence for the beauty and diversity of the natural world and to foster individual responsibility for conservation stewardship, say park officials.

“Mr. Rockefeller wanted to restore the property back to its natural state by removing all traces of the family compound and develop a visitors’ center that would become a model for other conservation and development projects in the National Park system,” says Ted Prythero, managing principal with M-E Engineers Inc. of Wheat Ridge. “Many of the mechanical systems we installed are unique to this building but are transferable to future projects.”

All roads, buildings, utilities and other structures from the Rockefeller-family ranch were removed in order to restore the area’s natural landscape and re-establish natural systems. About half of the structures were donated to Grand Teton for reuse as employee housing and related facilities; the remaining buildings were relocated to a new family property outside the park.

“The objective of this project was to restore the site to where it was before it became a family compound and open it up to the public so that they can enjoy the wonderful landscape,” says Heath Baxa, mechanical project engineer with M-E Engineers. “The mechanical design illustrates what is possible while trying to minimize the buildings’ impact on the surrounding environment.”

“We also wanted to create something that would be both effective and work well with the architecture of the building,” adds Prythero. “We wanted to incorporate a lot of interesting technologies while trying to make everything as aesthetically pleasing as possible.”

Complex Simplicity

M-E Engineers was selected by Carney Architects to provide the mechanical, plumbing, electrical and fire protection systems design for the 1,106-acre, LSR Preserve Center and remote restroom facilities in the park. The two companies have work together on a number of projects with a focus on sustainable building.

“The Preserve project was a unique concept that hadn’t been done before. I believe it certainly made for a better project because all parties worked so closely together,” says Carney. “We all know it was about taking 1,100 acres of private land, removing existing buildings and restoring everything back to its natural existence.”

The design team worked to reduce the environmental impact of the visitors’ center, save energy and water and design a building that fits within the setting of the Teton mountain range. But the remote site is not served by natural gas, sanitary or domestic water utilities, so they needed to create a virtually self-sustaining facility.

“We tried to keep the mechanical systems as simple as possible, sticking with natural ventilation and heating wherever possible. If we brought utilities in, we would have disturbed the site further than we wanted to,” says Prythero.

The buildings at the Preserve use 85% less energy than a conventional building and received every applicable LEED point from the USGBC LEED review. Key energy and water conservation features include the building envelope, daylighting, high-efficiency lighting and waterless toilets.

“I think what stands out the most about this project is that we used every appropriate technology while implementing best sustainable practices with what was available at this isolated site,” says Prythero.

Geothermal technology was selected to condition the Preserve Center with a ground-source heat pump, which circulates water through a series of 250-ft vertical wells, absorbing heat from the ground and transferring it to the building through ductwork. The heat pump provides domestic water heating and continuously supplies the building with fresh air for ventilation when occupied.

The facilities at the Preserve are closed in the winter, so winterization procedures were developed and the domestic water system was designed to allow for easy winterization. But, in considering winterization, the engineering team also had to take into consideration the temperature-sensitive exhibit equipment and fire protection equipment on the site.

“In some cases, we would have just considered letting the upper floors of the center freeze while the building was not in use, however with the temperature sensitive equipment that serves the exhibits, we had to find a way to lower the temperature while still protecting the exhibits,” says Baxa.

The heat pump operates year round to keep the equipment within temperature range, and the equipment system is set up to be monitored and controlled remotely. And, the “outhouses” were designed with water piping configurations to avoid freezing. “In the end, we came up with a system that’s easy to maintain, because it was turned over to the Park Service at the end of the project,” says Prythero. “We didn’t want to develop something that would just give them headaches later.”

Photovoltaic panels are located on the roofs of the three restroom buildings. Converting solar energy to electric current within the facility’s power distribution system for use in lighting, space conditioning and other electric equipment, the solar system provides for 58% of the visitors’ center’s electricity requirements.

Another interesting feature to the project is the toilets in the visitors’ center and the three restrooms are all composting toilets, which convert waste so that it can be used throughout the park as a fertilizer. They do not use potable water, contributing to a savings of 76,000 gal. of water annually, adds Baxa.

“The composting toilets reduce maintenance costs as compared to other remote Park Service toilets,” he adds. “In addition, the composting toilets eliminate the need for a traditional leachfield, which would have required significant site disturbance.”

The design team worked collaboratively with the owner and developer, and together they decided that LEED certification was high on the list of priorities. The LSR Preserve Center is currently the only LEED-platinum certified project in Wyoming. To date, there are only 51 platinum-certified projects in the United States. “Success of this project was the joint effort from everyone. It was so important that we all worked together as a team to get to that platinum level,” says Prythero.

GE Johnson Construction Co. of Colorado Springs was the general contractor on the project.

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