Interpretative Centers

As a premier environmental educational center, the Benjamin Olewine III Nature Center integrates building design and function with nature. The center is nestled within Wildwood Park in central Pennsylvania, where the Friends of Wildwood, along with the Dauphin County Department of Parks and Recreation, set out to build an educational nature center with minimal environmental footprint. The site previously was a dumping area, but after the discovery of the rare American Lotus on the park grounds in the 1980s, preservation efforts were fully adopted. Though the nature center was built before the inception of LEED, the project team was committed to designing an environmentally sound building that captured the natural beauty of the wetlands area.

Phipps Conservatory boasts the title of "most energy efficient conservatory in the world", and their ongoing commitment to sustainability is evidenced by their most recent project, the Center for Sustainable Landscapes (CSL). By utilizing an integrative design approach, this education, research and administration facility maximized efficiency and sustainability earning it "living" status under the Living Building Challenge (LBC), LEED NC v2.2 Platinum certification, WELL Building Platinum certification, and four stars under the SITES^TM 2009 landscape rating system. In addition to being the first and only project to meet these four highest green certifications, CSL has been named by AIA COTE as a Top Ten Green Project of 2016 among other awards.