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ARCHITECTURE > CULTURE > DESIGN by Client
January 2008 Fred Debbi
Moody Brainerd
Into 1
Photographs by
Lara
Swimmer
the
Woods 2
IGNEOUS CHIMNEY
1. DIORITE
2. GRANITE
3. GABBRO
4. COLUMNAR BASALT SEATS
3
4
1
An environmental learning center—nestled into
Architect a rustic 250-acre nature preserve—plays a dual
Mithun role as symbol and teaching tool.
Above: The greenhouse, or Living
Machine, also serves as a waste-water- ISLAND WOOD
BAINBRIDGE ISLAND,
treatment facility. Water for toilets or
WASHINGTON
irrigation is filtered, oxygenated, and
processed by plants.
On previous page: Each of the common
rooms in Island Wood’s three lodges is
focused around a stone chimney made
wholly from one type of rock: igneous
(shown), metamorphic, or sedimentary. I’m walking with ten fourth-graders around Island Wood, a six-acre environmen-
It’s one of many examples on the cam- tal learning-center campus built carefully, almost apologetically, into a 255-acre nature
pus of educational tools embedded into preserve on Bainbridge Island, Washington. At the moment we’re in the “educational
the architecture. studios” building, which is replete with green features designed both to demonstrate
architectural environmentalism and to elicit kids’ questions and interest. A little girl
emerges from the restroom, which has composting toilets, and says to her friend:
2 METROPOLIS January 2008
“Go in there and sit down!”
“Why?”
“Because this funny air comes up and hits your butt—it’s really weird!”
And there you have what Island Wood’s director of education, Pat Guild
O’Rourke, likes to call “the experiential approach to education that we want to
employ here.” Given the age of Island Wood’s clients—9, 10, and 11—demonstra-
tions of environmentalism that catch you by surprise are a tad more effective
than lectures or classroom sessions. “We don’t preach at them about some of
“We don’t preach at them about
the architecture,” Pat Guild KEY BUILDINGS
O’Rourke says of the experiential
approach. “We just make it obvi-
ous so they’ll ask questions.” A. Grad commons
B. Graduate student area
C. Tree house
A B D. Maintenance/greenhouse
E. Dining hall
F. Main center
G. Learning studios
C H. Art studio
I. Bird’s nest lodge
J. Guest cottage
K. Mammal’s den
L. Invertebrate inn
D
E
F G H I
J
K the sophisticated architecture—we just make it
obvious so they’ll ask questions,” she adds.
L It’s clear that the kids are unenthusiastic, even
fearful, at the prospect of going into detail about the
composting toilets. When a group of them is led
down an outdoor staircase to see the composting
Map, courtesy Mithun
operation beneath the restroom, they move hesi-
tantly, several of them holding their noses. But the
room is pristine and odor-free, even when the
instructor raises the lid on the compost bin to reveal
Above: Before plotting the campus, what looks like dark, dry sawdust.
the architects ran a detailed analysis “No, no, no way! Impossible! I don’t believe you!”
to determine the least eco-sensitive Above right: The lodges’ bunk beds “Can you two go upstairs and throw some
areas, considering factors such as are made out of wood salvaged from wadded-up paper down the toilet so he can see?”
slope, soil suitability, and logging construction sites, and the radiant And so goes the raising of environmental
history. The area where most of floors are heated with water tubes. consciousness, one child at a time.
the buildings are located had been “It’s a shoes-off environment,” says
logged as recently as the 1970s. Mithun’s David Goldberg.
METROPOLIS January 2008 3
LODGE
Each of the campus’s three lodges holds about 30 stu-
dents, plus chaperones—a full classroom’s worth. The
lodges are all centered around an educational theme
reflected in their names: Bird’s Nest Lodge, Invertebrate
Inn, and Mammal’s Den.
Island Wood was first dreamed up in 1997, when
Seattle’s Debbi Brainerd started thinking about
how to address two apparently unrelated prob-
lems: environmental degradation and shortfalls in
inner-city education. In 1998 she and her hus-
band, Paul, purchased a parcel of undeveloped
land on Bainbridge—a 35-minute ferry ride from
Seattle—and started planning to make spectacu-
lar, harmless use of their acquisition.
The land, previously owned by the Port Blakely
Tree Farms, was logged in the nineteenth century, is
now covered with second-growth forest, and
features—among other natural wonders—a pond, a
The bird blind is located in Cattail Marsh, north of the
main cluster of buildings. The simple octagonal plywood
frame is slit with openings (set at different heights for
kids of different ages) looking onto the marsh.
BIRD BLIND
4 METROPOLIS January 2008
FRIENDSHIP
CIRCLE
The Friendship Circle provides a sheltered outdoor gather-
ing space for educational programs and campfires. The
red-cedar logs were selectively harvested locally.
bog, a marsh, an estuary, a
deep ravine, and a harbor. The
Brainerds started planning to
build there; Debbi spent the
next two years consulting with
experts before beginning Island
Wood’s two-year construction
project. Now in its sixth year of
operation, the learning center is
as close to invisible as you can
make a six-acre, 18-building
campus, along with various
other structures (tree houses, a
bird blind, a helter, a green-
house, a suspension footbridge) out in the woods. Some of the
buildings are situated to hide them from one another, and all of the
buildings are made of materials that so closely match the hues of
their natural surroundings that they serve as camouflage.
Island Wood brings in children and teachers from inner-city
schools and hosts them for the better part of a week, giving them intense, hands-on outdoor science
education and indoor exposure to “green” architecture. Island Wood was Washington State’s first
LEED Gold project, and the buildings’ interiors look, at first blush, decidedly odd to city kids. Their
walls are all glass and unadorned wood; so natural is this interior that there are rooms where you do
a double-take, trying to distinguish the room you’re in from the outdoors viewed through the window.
In some places patterns on a
wall made from recycled wood
The buildings are a meta-environment: chips and chunks match the
they’re not only sustainable, they’re about riotous random pattern of the
ferns, salal, tree trunks, and The Floating Classroom was suggested by
being sustainable. There doesn’t seem to be forest-floor detritus visible a child at a charrette. An underwater pulley
any element to the architecture that isn’t system operated by onboard hand cranks
making a statement about itself. continued on page 7 carries small groups across Mac’s Pond to
take samples for a watershed-quality course.
Summer
sun
Photovoltaics:
25 cm array
Passive-
solar heating
The south side of the Learning
Studio’s butterfly roof is precisely PV-powered
angled to capture the winter- Winter Natural exhaust fan
sun ventilation
solstice sun. PV cells cover the
longer northern side, and in Natural Natural
daylight ventilation
the center, water for irrigation
is captured in a cistern.
Composting Natural
Rainwater toilet bins
collection daylight Radiant-floor
heating
METROPOLIS January 2008 5
TREE
HOUSE
From the tree house’s vantage point,
otherwise hidden features of the bog
below—stunted hemlock trees, clus-
tered wild roses, sharp-shinned
hawks—come into view. The tree will
survive for 50 years with the struc-
ture bolted and collared to it.
6 METROPOLIS January 2008
INTO THE WOODS
continued from page 5
outside. A given piece of furniture—crafted “Mithun was so excited about involving kids,”
out of a log or featuring spindles made from Brainerd says, “that I just thought, ‘This is the team
unfinished tree branches—looks more or
less like the tree parts outside, just a few I need to work with.’”
feet away. Wood employs graduate students as instruc- Children come into the lodges at the end of
“Is that real? It’s plastic, right?” tors and teaches graduate-level classes on the day and run to their rooms as if they’ve
“We really tried to make the learning environmentalism] who come primarily been living there for months. Then they
something kids experience,” O’Rourke says. because they can’t believe all the sustain- spend their time before dinner running up
“We try to model for the kids. It’s great fun able elements we have in one place here.” and down the hallways, sliding in their
when they are surprised by something.” Among these elements is everything from socks—the floors, which are mostly a mix of
“How come all the windows are on one photovoltaic roof panels to a rainwater-cap- concrete and fly ash, are ideally slippery and
side?” ture apparatus and a greenhouse, called the sliver-free. “They love the bunk beds,” she
“Someone asked Dr. Seuss one time, Living Machine, packed with plants that adds, “and they really like the ‘Great Room,’
‘Why do you write about things that are out filter Island Wood’s gray water for reuse. with the fireplace and the couch and every-
of whack?’ ” says Clancy Wolf, Island Mithun design principal Elizabeth thing. Sometimes at night, when kids would
Wood’s technology coordinator. “And that’s MacPherson credits the environmentalism to feel a little homesick, they’d come out there
one of the really neat things about these “Debbi’s vision.” Brainerd says that Mithun and cuddle up on the couch and listen to
buildings: they’re in a sense out of whack. “presented this idea to me, and it made so stories or just sit there with you by the
So when something doesn’t sit right with much sense—that there was an opportunity fireplace.” (Each of Island Wood’s five
the way kids are used to, they’re going to here far beyond what I ever imagined in the fireplaces, MacPherson points out, “repre-
check their assumptions.” beginning to design this notion of sustain- sents a different time period in the geologic
“How come the roof ’s upside down?” able visual elements in all aspects of the history of the Cascade Mountains”—another
“Like when kids get outside and look back campus.” She was concerned at first about story there for the telling.)
here,” Wolf continues, “they see this butterfly the high costs, “but we determined that we “There’s not a lot of other stuff here—we
roof instead of a normal one with the peak in could integrate all of the green pieces we can’t watch TV, we can’t play any video
the middle. One side of the roof is designed wanted by taking out things that you would games.”
to have solar gain, and we want high windows find in a traditional building to offset the “But we’re still having fun.”
facing south so we can get passive solar heat, price. In the end our cost per square foot was “The center,” Brainerd says, “is primarily
and the roof butterflies there so we can cap- $194, compared to schools being built here for inner-city kids who don’t have an oppor-
ture the water right down the middle, pour it at the same time, which were around $235 tunity to connect with the natural world.
into that cistern. Kids see that kind of stuff per square foot. So our cost was really low, And when kids are uncomfortable, they’re
and ask about it.” and most of that was just trade-off: if you not open to learning. So we wanted them to
Island Wood’s architecture, then, is walk around our buildings, especially if be as comfortable here as possible.”
didactic. Mithun project lead David you’re in these big areas, we don’t have any To that end she set about making sure that
Goldberg calls the structures “a textbook.” lowered ceilings or paint…we’ve left things kids were foremost in everyone’s mind from
The buildings are a meta-environment: sort of raw. And we have radiant-floor heat, the beginning. When choosing an architect,
they’re not only sustainable, they’re about which will save us money in the long run.” the make-or-break interview question turned
being sustainable. There doesn’t seem to “Hey, the floor’s warm!” out to be, “How do you see involving chil-
be any element to the architecture that The effect is not austere: the buildings dren in the design process?” The answer of
isn’t making a statement about itself. have a comfortable feel that seems deliber- one finalist was a “pregnant pause,”
Island Wood’s Welcome Center_a large, ately designed rather than settled for. “When Brainerd recalls. “But at Mithun there was
spacious room—features a 97-foot beam, I went to interior-design school,” MacPherson this fellow [David Goldberg] who practically
hewn from old-growth timber 150 years says, “it was a lot about layers and layers jumped across the table and said, ‘Oh, gosh,
ago by the old mill, suspended from the and layers of stuff. That somehow made for we’ll go into the classroom, do design char-
ceiling in tandem with a replica of one of lovely places, but what we’re finding is that rettes, we’ll take in things they can build
the mill’s massive saw blades. The eye- the more closely we can tie our environment models with!’ He was so excited about get-
catching display is designed to deliver a to nature, the more comfortable we feel. So ting kids involved in the design process that
history lesson. You watch shoeless fourth- if we’re able to expose and show how some- I just thought, ‘This is the team I need to
graders sliding giddily across the concrete thing is built—just show what it’s made of work with.’”
floor in their socks under this arrange- and its function—why not?” Joining forces with Julie Johnson, an
ment and you’re reminded of children’s “A lot of the sustainable stuff,” says associate professor at the University
stories for adults: the genre that appeals Claire Colegrove, an intern camp instruc- of Washington’s department of land-
to kids while offering a deeper message tor at Island Wood last summer, “is over scape architecture, Brainerd and
accessible only to their elders. the kids’ heads. But they love the lodges, Goldberg ran design charrettes with
“Every year,” O’Rourke says, “we have at and especially”—she sighs in exaspera- some 250 fourth-, fifth-,
least two or three graduate students [Island tion—“the slippy floors.” and sixth-graders over
METROPOLIS January 2008 7
INTO THE WOODS
six months. The kids built models, one wall of each room to accommodate shower and a place to hang your things,
answered questions, and drew ideal spac- larger groups.) Off of every room is a toilet- hooks on the wall to hang your clothes.”
es. “A lot of what they came up with you sink-shower arrangement with the sink in The guests at Island Wood are invariably
would think was obvious,” Brainerd says. the middle and the toilet and shower on appreciative. Particularly moving for
“But there were other ideas that I probably either side, each in its own little room with Colegrove was the week she spent with a
never would have guessed. One kid said to a door. (The showerhead is installed at group of children from Seattle’s Atlantic
me, ‘I don’t want to wake up and see the kid’s height—sternum level for an adult.) Street Center, a facility for poor and
other buildings.’ What they were showing us “I had two little girls come up to me at the otherwise disadvantaged children. A donor
in their drawings were these little windows end of a charrette,” Brainerd says, “and they had arranged for all the kids to be outfitted
in their bunk rooms. They wanted to see the whispered, ‘You know, we never took a with new outdoor clothing and given a week
trees from their bed. The other piece we shower the whole week we were away at at Island Wood. “They’d never been in the
gleaned from this was that the lodges should camp.’ And when I asked them why, they sort woods before,” Colegrove recalls. “They
not be built where the other buildings on the of looked at each other, embarrassed, and freaked out at first. It was so hard for them,
campus were. So that’s why they’re out in then one of them said, ‘We didn’t want any- being outdoors. So the coziness and comfort
the woods.” one to see us without our clothes on.’ So I in the lodges was really important.”
The lodges do indeed look like a kid’s asked them, ‘Well, how could we design “This is like staying in a hotel!”
fantasy—imagine Disneyland designed by some showers that we could use so you would In the final analysis the best line on Island
Davy Crockett. Each room has two sets of like to come to camp again?’ And they gave Wood is delivered by carpenter and wood-
bunk beds, each bed with an LED night- me a drawing that showed me a layout for a worker Floyd Luke, a longtime islander who
light inset in the wall beside it and a small shower room. It was just a very simple situa- helped build one of the center’s tree houses. “If
square window in the wall over the pillow tion—you saw the results—where you had a God had money,” he says, “this is how He
looking outside. (There is a Murphy bed in door that you could close and a bench and a
°
would’ve spent it.” www.metropolismag.com
Pier 56, 1201 Alaskan Way, Suite 200 4450 Blakely Avenue NE
Seattle, WA 98101 Bainbridge Island, WA 98110-2257
206.623.3344 206.855.4300
www.mithun.com www.islandwood.org
Reprinted with permission from Metropolis, February 2008 by The Reprint Dept., 1-800-259-0470; 10688-0607. (10923-0308).
For web posting only. Bulk printing prohibited.
