Visitors to St David's, the UK's smallest city, will now be able to explore one the UK's greenest buildings, Oriel y Parc, which opened this month in the Welsh city.
Oriel y Parc will be home to the Pembrokeshire National Park Visitor Center, which will provide travelers with information on the local attractions, wildlife and eco-tours, and an art gallery specializing in landscape art, and featuring works taken from Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales.
Green features in the visitor center include solar panels to heat water for the kitchen and bathrooms, a Ground Source Heat Pump used to heat the underfloor heating system, natural materials such as lamb’s wool for insulation in the ceilings, and gray water collection for the center's toilets.
The center also has two green roofs - a grass roof over the end gallery and a sedum roof over the middle gallery. A grass over the end gallery provides insulation and reduces surface water run-off; and a sedum roof - an indigenous plant in Wales that survives on little moisture and earth, over the middle gallery, provides a lighter weight for the large flat roof of this space whilst still helping with insulation and rain water control.
Everything in the center's cafe is also produced with the environment in mind. Food is prepared and cooked daily so energy costs are cut, and by obtaining our ingredients as locally and seasonally as possible, food miles are reduced. The suppliers are also encouraged to use minimum packaging and fair-trade products wherever possible.
One of the center's most innovative features, however, is the curved design. The curve is aligned with the path of the sun - this allows the building to gain the maximum warmth available from sunrise to sunset. The heavily insulated walls also act as a temperature stabilizer helping to even out sudden fluctuations in the weather.
St David's is already one of Britain's greenest destinations thanks to some innovative entrepreneurs and its location in the Pembrokeshire National park, and the eco-friendly Oriel y Parc is a fitting new addition to such a green city.| < Prev | Next > |
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