Kalwall Daylights Award-Winning Irish Environmental Center

Debates over global warming, biodiversity and renewable energy rage on in some quarters. However, for 150 acres of former farmland in Northern Ireland, these issues and others are just a walk in the park.

Just at the edge of Ballymena, a borough in County Antrim, the ECOS Millennium Environment Centre turned the poorly managed, often-flooded, rough grazing land into a path-lined park and interpretive facility. Brown trout, sticklebacks and pike thrive in a river-fed, artificial lake which also attracts wild ducks and swans. Acres of wildflowers and woodlands as well as a hay meadow, willow coppice and community organic market garden further enhance the area's once-limited biodiversity. A trailer campground offers painterly views of Slemish Mountain.

Inside ECOS' 10,800-square-foot visitor center, education and fun combine to make environmental concerns and sustainable technologies understandable to individuals, families and school groups. Everything echoes the sustainability theme: goods sold in the shops, the café menu, waste policies, materials used to build the structure, and even staff uniforms that include fleece jackets made from recycled plastic bottles. The center is a veritable catalog of renewable fuels and energy-efficient technology. Part of an environment-friendly wastewater treatment system, the willow coppice is also used to generate gases which feed a 50 kilowatt heat and power plant. Combined with electricity from wind and solar sources, it supplies up to 60% of the center's needs while cutting 200 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. The building's design distributes heat evenly throughout, keeping hot and cold spots to a minimum.

With its long tradition of research and development of solar energy and "green" building design, Kalwall was a natural part of the mix. "A Kalwall translucent curtain wall system forms a multi-story tower at one end of the sprawling complex as the focus of the visitors center," says Kalwall's Bruce Keller. "Extending out from the cylindrical hub of the complex, translucent Kalwall walkways lead to observation platforms."

The aesthetic contributions by Kalwall to the project's unusual design are further enhanced by the energy-saving performance of the highly insulating, translucent sandwich panel system. Maintenance and repair expenses are also reduced. Since the panels are self-cleaning, normal rainfall creates a sheeting action to clean the surface. Kalwall is rugged, shatterproof, vandal-resistant, and maintenance-free, further lowering expenses over time by reducing capital outlays for replacement.

Paid for in part by national lottery funds and the Ballymena Council, the entire, almost 16-million-dollar ECOS project received the Sustainability Award from Britain's Civic Trust. Originally founded to raise architecture standards in the post-war era, the Trust also works to foster conservation and green space management. "A national environmental award is very exciting," adds Keller. "As a 'green' design pioneer, Kalwall is especially pleased to be part of a project the entire point of which is to demonstrate exciting ways to limit humankind's harmful impact upon the planet."

Kalwall Specifications:
Light Transmission: 15%
Solar Heat Gain Coefficient: 0.20
U-Factor: .18 by NFRC-100
Complete Panel System U-Factor: .30 NFRC Certified
Panel Color: White, Crystal
Trim Color: Black

For more information, contact:
Bruce Keller
Kalwall Corporation
1-800-258-9777