For the past six years, architecture/engineering firm Leo A Daly has been designing sites for remote field stations that are collecting environmental data across the country on behalf of the National Ecological Observatory Network, an independent nonprofit entity funded by the National Science Foundation.
Over its 30-year lifespan, NEON’s 106 aquatic and terrestrial sites will track climate conditions, land-use changes, and data on invasive species. The sites have been selected to represent different regions of vegetation, landforms, climate, and ecosystem performance.
One difficult design problem, according to Elizabeth Hunter, the firm’s Project Manager for NEON, has been complying with a mandate of near-zero ecological disturbance. “NEON’s engineers wanted to build [the field stations] with a hovercraft and not disturb anything,” she says, only half jokingly. Leo A Daly, which has designed structures for national parks, had to find ways to meet NEON’s demands using equipment no bigger nor more intrusive than a small skid steer loader.
Case in point: the instrument hut and tower for a site called Dead Lake, near Demopolis, Ala. The site is located close to the Black Warrior River and is susceptible to flooding. NEON has strict criteria about enclosing its instruments within a continuous foundation, so the design team called for the tower to be built on a foundation supported by piers five feet off the ground that allow floodwaters to pass through. The station went live in 2013.
The sites are mostly self sufficient, but have to be accessible by scientists, who visit the sites periodically to collect data and recalibrate the equipment. At Dead Lake, an elevated metal boardwalk wiggles its way around trees and other obstructions from the site to a staging area a couple of hundred feet away.
Hunter says the buildout of 60 towers and 46 aquatic sites—including 40 relocatable structures—should be completed by 2017. The towers range in height from 26 to 300 feet and take two to six months to build. The sites cost anywhere from under $500,000 to more than $1 million each.
Read about more innovations from BD+C's 2014 Great Solutions Report
Related Stories
| Dec 22, 2014
Studio Gang to design Chicago’s third-tallest skyscraper
The first U.S. real-estate investment by The Wanda Group, owned by China’s richest man, will be an 88-story, 1,148-ft-tall mixed-use tower designed by Jeanne Gang.
| Dec 19, 2014
Zaha Hadid unveils dune-shaped HQ for Emirati environmental management company
Zaha Hadid Architects released designs for the new headquarters of Emirati environmental management company Bee’ah, revealing a structure that references the shape and motion of a sand dune.
| Dec 19, 2014
Chicago Architecture Biennial to hold 'Lakefront Kiosk Competition'
The first Chicago Architecture Biennial will take place from October 2015-January 2016, with a theme of "The State of the Art of Architecture."
| Dec 18, 2014
Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West to be recreated—with LEGO
Containing more than 180,000 LEGO bricks in 11 colors and 120 different shapes, the model measures eight by four feet and is made entirely of standard LEGO parts.
| Dec 18, 2014
11 new highs for tall buildings: CTBUH recaps the year's top moments in skyscraper construction
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat cherrypicked the top moments from 2014, including a record concrete pour, a cautionary note about high-rise development, and two men's daring feat.
| Dec 18, 2014
International Parking Institute and Green Parking Council collaborate with GBCI
The new collaboration recognizes importance of sustainable parking facility design and management to the built environment.
| Dec 18, 2014
Top 10 sports facilities of 2014: Designboom ranks the year's best projects
The list includes some of the year's epic stadiums, such as World Cup Stadium Arena de Amazonia in Manaus, Brazil, and smaller projects, like the Spordtgebouw Sports Centerin the Netherlands.
| Dec 18, 2014
In response to ultra-open and uber-collaborative office environments
Susan Cain’s bestselling 2012 book, "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking" has made an impact on how we understand our current workforce, recognizing that at least one-third of the people we work with are introverts, writes SRG Partnership's Susan Gust.
| Dec 17, 2014
USGBC announces 2014 Best of Green Schools honorees
Houston's Monarch School was named the K-12 school of the year, and Western Michigan University was honored as the top higher-ed institution, based on environmental programs and education efforts.
| Dec 17, 2014
ULI report looks at growing appeal of micro unit apartments
New research from the Urban Land Institute suggests that micro units have staying power as a housing type that appeals to urban dwellers in high-cost markets who are willing to trade space for improved affordability and proximity to downtown neighborhoods.