Aldo Leopold Legacy Center
Building on our Knowledge Base
The Aldo Leopold Foundation embraced new technologies and time-tested ideas to ensure that the Legacy Center would create positive connections between the built landscape and the natural landscape. By looking solely to technological advances to meet the challenges we face, we risk losing a considerable base of knowledge about how to create comfortable, durable buildings with low tech, low energy—but highly intelligent—solutions developed over countless generations prior to the Industrial Revolution. The Aldo Leopold Legacy Center combines both approaches in a beautiful and functional space.
The Legacy Center’s design influences the workplace and the landscape in positive ways. Offices and meeting spaces are illuminated by sunlight and cooled by natural breezes that carry the sounds of birdsong and rustling leaves. Native plants used in landscaping ultimately blend with surrounding savannas and forests. By maximizing the use of locally-harvested wood, the Legacy Center became an integral part of the ongoing conservation efforts at the Leopold Shack and Farm. Using renewable energy sources to heat, cool, and power the building and cutting our dependence on fossil fuels has positive benefits for people and places around the planet.
Conservation means harmony between men and land. When the land does well for its owner, and the owner does well by his land, when both end up better by reason of their partnership, we have conservation. When one or the other grows poorer, we do not. – Aldo Leopold (1939)
Design
High performance in energy and resource efficiency doesn’t mean sacrificing aesthetics and comfort. Carefully designed to fit into the larger landscape, the look and feel of the Legacy Center is meant to be inclusive: of visitors, of staff, and of the land. Incorporating large windows, many doors leading outside, a central courtyard filled with the sounds of birdsong and running water, and native flowers and grasses in the surroundings, the design brings people closer to nature.
Read more about designing the building.
Materials
By using wood harvested from our lands and locally processed, we ensured the materials used in the Legacy Center were produced responsibly. The Forest Stewardship Council provided third-party certification of the foundation’s forestry practices. Stone for the Legacy Center’s fireplace and aqueduct was reclaimed from a demolished airport hanger. In a major accomplishment for the construction industry, more than 95 percent of construction waste was recycled.
Carbon Budget
The Legacy Center has helped set the standard for how LEED assesses carbon neutral building operation. Carbon dioxide emitted by the Aldo Leopold Foundation’s activities is offset by renewable energy use and carbon sequestered by sustainable forestry practiced on the Leopold Farm.
Read more about the Legacy Center's carbon budget.