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  • habi-sabi finalist for inmidtown competition
  • Nestworks exhibited at Arup Phase 2
  • Nestworks honoured in Animal Architecture Awards
  • Birds in the blocks
  • Urban Birds
  • London’s red-jacketed volunteers
  • Shed modernism
  • The Emerald Necklace
  • Cable Suspended Sod Roof
  • Urban Birds Nestworks

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The Emerald Necklace

The site has a unique loca­tion. The Upper Rio Grande Events and Recre­ation Complex’s grounds and build­ings will be the first thing you see when you approach the his­toric town of Creede, from any direc­tion. Along the Sil­ver Thread Scenic High­way, the site and the Wil­low Creek Con­ser­va­tion Area become one gem in an emer­ald neck­lace of scenic val­leys stretch­ing up the Rio Grande. Pro­pos­als for its devel­op­ment must pro­vide a project which is at once an authen­tic sig­na­ture for Creede and a fit­ting ‘jewel’ in the necklace.

The archi­tec­ture and land­scap­ing is an exten­sion and embod­i­ment of Creede and the very vis­i­ble spirit that has cre­ated it.  The atti­tude and spirit of the moun­tain set­tlers was, and con­tin­ues to be, unique.  Local archi­tec­ture reflects the val­ues and sen­si­bil­i­ties of its peo­ple, and this is par­tic­u­larly vis­i­ble in places some­what off the beaten track, where peo­ple have had to wres­tle with avail­able raw mate­ri­als to sur­vive and to make their livelihoods.

51% stu­dios are using the same kind of think­ing that’s been used for well over 100 years in this val­ley, using the local site con­di­tions and mate­ri­als in frank ways that reflect aware­ness of their inher­ent attributes.

Cable Suspended Sod Roof

Dot­ted around the val­leys near Creede our eye was caught by tra­di­tional sod roofed potato cel­lars. Not only did they sit well in the land­scape, but they used regional mate­ri­als intel­li­gently to cre­ate an authen­tic, inven­tive eco-architecture. Our green roofs are hung on cables tra­di­tion­ally used for min­ing activ­i­ties, using a frac­tion of the mate­r­ial a beam would to sup­port the con­sid­er­able snow loads and addi­tional load of by a green roof. By in addi­tion earth­link­ing the build­ings and using geo-thermal heat, we have brought this home-grown tech­nol­ogy current.

Green roofs have sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits both for the public/community and for the indi­vid­ual build­ing owner. Pri­mary pub­lic ben­e­fits include con­trol­ling stormwa­ter runoff, improv­ing water qual­ity and improv­ing air qual­ity. The most sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits of green roofs for build­ing own­ers are reduc­tions in build­ing oper­at­ing costs, sig­nif­i­cantly longer roof life and lower life-cycle costs for the roof, and increased prop­erty value.

The green roof serves as a fil­ter to reduce pol­lu­tants in the water and also to lower the tem­per­a­ture of the water that is even­tu­ally returned to the watershed.

Although a green roof ini­tially costs more than a con­ven­tional roof — $10 to $20 per square foot for a green roof ver­sus $5 to $10 per square foot for a con­ven­tional roof — they more than make up for that dif­fer­ence over time. Green roofs extend the lifes­pan of the roof mem­brane sig­nif­i­cantly by pro­tect­ing it from sun­light and tem­per­a­ture vari­a­tions. As a result, green roofs can con­ser­v­a­tively be expected to last two to three times longer than a con­ven­tional roof. Expe­ri­ence with green roofs in Ger­many shows that 40+ and 50+ life spans for green roofs should be expected.

Because of their insu­lat­ing prop­er­ties, green roofs reduce the heat­ing and cool­ing costs for build­ings by at least 10 to 15 per­cent. A Cana­dian study showed that a 6-inch exten­sive green roof can reduce heat gains by 95 percent.

On the banks of Wil­low Creek, green roofs will also improve the aes­thetic qual­ity of the build­ings, to soften them and inte­grate with the native prairie land­scape, using desert plants which need low or no maintenance.

The steel struc­ture of the indoor arena how­ever quickly becomes expen­sive if asked to take on a sod roof in addi­tion to snowload­ing. Struc­tures that carry load through pure ten­sion (hang­ing) require  a frac­tion of the mate­r­ial required by bend­ing struc­tures such as beams or trusses and pro­vide an effi­cient way of car­ry­ing an exten­sive green roof in addi­tion to non-uniform snow loads.

Flexible Masterplan

It may be still snow­ing in Creede, but here at 51% stu­dios we’re work­ing hard at work on the devel­op­ment of the sus­tain­able mas­ter­plan for the Upper Rio Grande Event and Recre­ation Com­plex [for­merly known as, and still encom­pass­ing, the Min­eral County Fair­grounds] which has been made pos­si­ble by the El Pomar Grant Award.

Phase 1, which included reme­di­a­tion, relo­ca­tion of wil­lows and the out­door arena, is com­plete and has affored the com­mu­nity of Creede a safe, beau­ti­ful and wind­free place to rope and ride.

For upcom­ing events and news, do also take a look at the MCFA’s newly launched web­site: www.upperriogrande.org

 

 

Fairgrounds, Mineral County

Reme­di­a­tion work on this 46 acre site was com­pleted last year, with the out­door arena being moved to its final posi­tion on the lower bench.

The for­mer sil­ver min­ing town of Creede is located in the Alte Vista Moun­tains, 10 miles from the source of the Rio Grande. The fair­ground site’s strate­gic impor­tance is its loca­tion on the flood­plain of Wil­low Creek - it can be seen for miles from the Sil­ver Thread Scenic High­way. The site makes an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion to the nat­ural land­scape and could become an iconic sig­na­ture for the town.

The Min­eral County Fair­grounds Asso­ci­a­tion approached 51% stu­dios to develop with them a pro­posal for per­ma­nent all weather fair­ground facil­i­ties which could be imple­mented over time. Each phase will need to func­tion in its own right, allow­ing for the next with max­i­mum effi­ciency. We devel­oped a flex­i­ble mas­ter dia­gram, using reme­di­a­tion to cre­ate an endur­ing ‘func­tional land­scape’, pre­serv­ing and enhanc­ing exist­ing views to and from the site.

Facil­i­ties will include a multi-purpose all-weather arena, com­mu­nity cen­ter and pub­licly acces­si­ble land­scape where equal impor­tance is given, and clear dis­tinc­tions made, between pedes­tri­ans, the ani­mals and their trucks.

Local sus­tain­able design research has included a sur­vey of read­ily avail­able local mate­ri­als, effi­cient energy cre­ators such as ground source, solar cells etc, indige­nous build­ing tra­di­tions such as straw bale and stucco con­struc­tion, in-floor radi­ant heat, and nat­ural lighting.

The Min­eral County Fair­grounds Asso­ci­a­tion [MCFA] has suc­cess­fully secured city, county, state and fed­eral grants for the site, as well as over­see­ing the Vol­un­tary Cleanup Operation.

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