New exhibit at Virginia Living Museum shows how to build, live and garden green.
Virginia Living Museum Opens Exhibit on Going Green
Aug 25, 2009You've read all those articles about living green – maintaining your home in a manner that uses less energy, produces less waste, and is kinder to Mother Earth. Now don't you wish you could go somewhere that actually shows you, up close and hands-on, how it can be done?
You can.
On June 20, the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News opened the Goodson Living Green House. In its exhibit house and yard, homeowners, architects and contractors can see all the latest techniques and products they can use to build and maintain an earth-friendly home, presented in a way that makes them visible and understandable to the general public.
The Goodsen Living Green House is the first of its kind in Virginia and one of the first anywhere in the United States.
The 600-square-foot exhibit house includes these features:
- Recycled building materials, including salvaged lumber and wood-like siding made from recycled paper.
- Alternatives to PVC piping and to treated lumber for decking.
- Roofs covered with living plants, which both insulate and reduce water runoff, that can be installed on homes, garages, sheds, porches or businesses.
- Solar photovoltaic panels, a solar water heater, passive solar heating and radiant floor heating, daylighting and natural ventilation.
- Alternative wall systems and alternative insulation systems.
- Alternative green interior wall and floor finishing options.
- Collection of storm water in rain barrels and cisterns.
- Geothermal heat pump and cooling unit.
- A computer kiosk where visitors can calculate their own carbon footprint.
The house was named the Goodson House in honor of the contributions made to the museum by long-time supporter George Goodson, his family and their company, Warwick Plumbing and Heating Corp.
Architect was Watershed of Richmond. Builder was Calvin S. Collins Contractor, Inc., Newport News.
The 3,000-square-foot Conservation Gardens features earth-friendly gardening techniques: the use of native plants, mulching and composting to reduce the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. It shows how proper landscaping methods can reduce storm water runoff that pollutes local waterways, while proving food, water and shelter for wildlife.
The $315,000 project was partially funded by a $150,000 matching grant from the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network. The garden portion of the project was also supported through a donation from the local Huntington Garden Club.
The project concludes Phase I of the museum's Gateway to Nature Capital Campaign. Projects in Phase I totaled $2.2 million and also included the below amenities that were opened earlier:
- The Virginia Garden, highlighting 400 years of Virginia's botanical history with plants used by native Americans and colonists
- Wild Side Café and Terrace
- Wason Amphitheater
- Abbitt Planetarium
- Upgraded planetarium lobby with a Magic Planet interactive exhibit
The museum is located at 524 J. Clyde Morris Blvd., Newport News.
Call 757-595-1900 or visit www.thevlm.org.
Contact Marketing Director Virginia Gabriele, 757-534-7479, marketing@thevlm.org
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