Yew Dell Botanical Gardens Visitor Center

What were the circumstances of receiving the commission for this project?

Yew Dell Botanical Gardens is an historic property founded in 1943 by horticulturalist & nurseryman Theodore Klein, and is recognized for its unique collection of themed structures and gardens. The property is part of the Garden Conservancy, a national organization dedicated to saving and preserving America’s exceptional gardens.

De Leon & Primmer Architecture Workshop has realized several projects as part of a multi-phase program to facilitate public use and enjoyment of the arboretum & themed gardens. The Gheens Barn & Peyton Samuel Head Trust Pavilion, a new learning & resource center for Yew Dell Gardens completed in 2006, was the first component of this program. In 2010, as another component of this effort, The Workshop was asked to design a new visitor center. Funded in its entirety by a private donor, the project entails the rehabilitation of an existing tobacco barn situated near the property entry. The program for the 1,842 s.f. facility includes: Reception area with information & ticket sales, gift shop, plant sale area, group tour meeting zone, internet sales office, and storage.

Can you describe your design process for the building?

Several key challenges guided the project: 1) a modest construction budget of $64/s.f., 2) a tight 5-month design & construction completion schedule coinciding with a major public event, and 3) an ambitious program proposed for an existing structure with limited available space.

Preserving the exterior iconic image of the tobacco barn structure, the new facility is designed as a ‘building-within-a-building’. For economy and energy efficiency, the project utilizes the shell of the existing barn as an independent shade structure, leaving it essentially unaltered with the exception of minor framing stabilization. Working with existing structural bay modules, new conditioned interior spaces are consolidated to one side of the barn interior while unconditioned spaces are designed as covered flexible-use areas. During low-humidity spring & fall seasons, frameless glass doors can be left open to merge both halves of the barn. Following state historic preservation guidelines, new construction is clearly differentiated from the existing structure through light-colored interior wood plank surfaces and material contrasts.

How does the building compare to other projects in your office, be it the same or other building types?

The Yew Dell Botanical Gardens Visitor Center exemplifies the mission upon which De Leon & Primmer Architecture Workshop was founded: the use of contextual specificity of our region as an open-ended opportunity for research & investigation, and the exploration of architectural possibilities to enrich & nurture our community through both design and the collaborative process of consensus-building.

Additionally, the Visitor Center reflects our working methodology—drawing inspiration from local traditions of craft & fabrication, and placing an emphasis on ordinary materials and conventional construction methods. We purposefully strive for a reductive design rigor aimed at both economy and constructability. In a similar vein, we approach sustainability from an equally regional perspective, favoring modest “passive” strategies over specialized systems through an understanding of site & climate.

How does the building relate to contemporary architectural trends, be it sustainability, technology, etc.?

The project focused on the challenges of maximizing the value of a modestly-funded project for a not-for-profit client, while incorporating affordable, passive sustainable strategies. Simple strategies include the following:

• Re-using the shell of the tobacco barn as an independent shade structure, reducing heating & cooling loads while preserving the historic structure
• Arranging programmatic components to maximize use possibilities through flexibility of indoor, outdoor and sheltered areas
• Consolidating the area of conditioned space to a minimal 620 s.f. in order to reduce heating/cooling loads
• Locating the new facility within the existing tobacco barn to avoid construction of new utility lines
• Pervious gravel paving is maintained beyond the barn footprint in order to avoid increasing stormwater runoff
• ‘Heat Island Effect’ is minimized through high solar reflectance indexes (SRI’s) of roof & site materials
• Use of high fly ash content in concrete mix (recycled content)
• Use of pre-fabricated kit-of-parts and modular materials to minimize construction waste
• Minimizing the amount of material types to ease maintenance; choosing durable, easy to clean materials
• The majority of construction materials are either locally sourced or come from within a 500-mile radius of the project site
• The entire facility is ADA-accessible.

E-Mail Interview conducted by John Hill