IslandWood Environmental Learning Center
Bainbridge Island, Washington

IslandWood's mission is to create a magical residential education campus for fourth and fifth graders incorporating ecology, technology, and the arts.

The campus comprises a nearly complete watershed, and site features including a bog, pond, cattail marsh, ravine, and multiple generations of logged forest. Forty buildings and site structures provide varied opportunities for experiential-based learning.

Creating the Magic

• Natural entry trails are a "decompression zone" for visitors. All vehicles park on the site's periphery.
  
  
• Buildings are sited at the north edge of solar meadows, allowing passive and active solar gain from the south, and views to the forest from interior spaces.
  
  
• Multiple site study structures provide a dry place in the forest for writing, drawing, and field experiments.

Ecology, Technology, & the Arts

• Campus and buildings are active participants in the teaching process.
  
  
• "Butterfly roofs" allow passive solar gain from the south, active systems on north, and views into the forest beyond. Wood cleared from solar meadows was used as exterior siding and interior trim.
  
  
• No air-conditioning—windows open and buildings breathe. Students help operate building controls and can monitor their energy and water use. The largest photovoltaic array in the northwest powers 50% of the Learning Studios building.
  
  
• The Living Machine™ serves as a biological wastewater treatment plant and an interactive classroom for biology and water quality issues.
  
  
• Geological fireplaces, rainwater cisterns, and site-harvested building materials provide strong ecological connections and interactive hands-on learning.
  
  
• Artist-made building parts such as the "saw-mill mobius strip" and "endangered salmon sink" use art to help explain critical environmental issues.

> Morken Center at Pacific Lutheran University

 

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