The new visitor center at the Denali National Park and Preserve send a different message apart from its usual musing and amazing visitors with the North America’s highest mountain, majestically standing in the Alaska interior.
The visitor center claims to be environmentally friendly. Let us see how it is–
A machine peels off the trees’ top layer and dirt from the 3-acre site, which was previously ground up and mixed to make 4,000 yards of topsoil. And this was used to landscape the site.
The wall panels of the building were made from wheat board — a product derived from wheat hulls. Scraps compressed and glue obtained from a plywood mill near Vancouver, British Columbia were used to make the beams.
The windows are installed with solar panels and generate about 5 percent of the building’s energy needs. When operating at 100 percent capacity, the panels provide 3.5 kilowatts of power, apart from lending an interesting geometric design to the windows.
