By Maureen Turner for Going Green
Hitchcock Center serves as a powerful teaching tool for the rest of us.
Signs of the Hitchcock Center for the Environment’s commitment to sustainability are evident all around its South Amherst site: the large solar array on its roof, the rain barrels at the bottom of downspouts, the station for refilling water bottles in a hallway, the composting toilets in the restrooms. But many of the green measures the center took in constructing its new home, which opened in 2016, are not immediately visible to the eye. At a recent event, “Building without Toxins: Educating for a Healthy Material World,” the nonprofit organization highlighted some of those less immediately obvious measures, the result of thoughtful, even painstaking decisions made at every step of the construction process.
By Jonathan Wright
A recent Gazette article on the award-winning R. W. Kern Center at Hampshire College, also commenting on its beautiful sister-ship, the Hitchcock Center for the Environment, on the Hampshire campus, gives the reader a sense of the scope of the Living Building Challenge undertaking and the achievement (“Hampshire College’s new building earns national award for sustainability,” June 5).
By Katie Koerten
As an environmental educator at the Hitchcock Center for the Environment, I do most of my work outside. Until our recent move to our new “living” building I didn’t consider that our nature center itself could help me teach about the environment as well.
By Julie Johnson
After nearly 8 years of planning, designing and constructing the Hitchcock Center’s new living building, I attended the annual conference of the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) in Seattle, WA, the people who brought us the Living Building Challenge. Held over 5 days in May, the focus of this conference is more than simply how we can transform the built environment. It’s about how we can transform society.
Join materials, toxics, and living building experts for a conversation on toxins in the built environment and how making toxic-free choices in materials is possible.
By Jonathan A. Wright
One of the primary goals of the Living Building Challenge (LBC) is to eliminate the use of known toxins in products installed in the built environment. If it is harmful to life – humans, animal or anything else – do not use it if at all possible. In 2016, Wright Builders Inc. completed two living buildings which will be evaluated for certification in the next 18-to-24 months. These projects gave us a unique opportunity to work inside the largely unexplored new world of materials research, vetting documentation, and research.
On September 13, 2016, after four years of planning, designing, fundraising and building, the Hitchcock Center opened the doors to our new 9,000 square foot “living” building. In just our first week, we welcomed over 400 program participants and visitors through our Monarch Citizen Science, Caterpillar Lab, Nature Play Afterschool, Homeschool, Girls Into the Wild, Phenology, preK-12 Teacher Open House, and Building Tour programs!
By Julie Johnson, Executive Director
Our initial $5.8M goal was ambitious, but thanks to the amazing outpouring of support from our local community, private foundations, and state and federal funding sources, we successfully achieved this fundraising goal! THANK YOU!
With a successfully concluded phase one of our campaign by creating an innovative new environmental learning center to support our expanded program aspirations and to serve as an effective teaching tool publicly demonstrating the principles of ecology and the practice of sustainability.
State Representative Ellen Story was honored with the Hitchcock Center’s Hero for a Healthy Planet Award at the annual Salamander Sunday Brunch on November 6th. Her service to the community and […]
There’s a quiet revolution underway in Massachusetts….
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Hitchcock Center for the Environment
at Hampshire College
845 West Street | Amherst MA 01002 | 413.256.6006 | 413.253.2809 fax