Scientists get new digs at Smoky Mountains National Park

For nearly a decade, scientists in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park were working in less than optimum conditions on the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI), a project that is documenting the 800-sq-mi park’s estimated 100,000 species of living organisms.

Now these park scientists have moved their work to a new 15,000-sq-ft, site-sensitive, sustainable building that will facilitate their research efforts. Designed by the architecture firm Lord, Aeck & Sargent, the new Twin Creeks Science and Education Center will help scientists gain the knowledge that is essential for the effective protection and preservation of the Park’s ecosystem.

Targeting LEED Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, the $4.4 million Twin Creeks facility, which will become the National Park Service’s (NPS) first LEED building in the southeastern United States, responds to a variety of challenges and constraints placed on the architects.

“We were concerned that the facility not disturb the nearby resources, which include two trout streams, forestland, archaeological sites and a collection of historic buildings where the park scientists have been working under makeshift conditions until now,” said Dianne Flaugh, a National Park Service landscape architect who worked closely with the Lord, Aeck & Sargent team from site selection through construction.

The Twin Creeks Science and Education Center is located about 2 mi from and 1,000 feet above Gatlinburg, Tenn. Sited on a relatively flat spur along a scenic mountain trail, the building speaks to a mountain cabin aesthetic. Featuring five gabled dormers that introduce natural light through clerestory windows, it is clad in regional river stone around the base, with cedar wood and generous amounts of glass above.

KBI completes Chatanooga’s Medical Park III

KBI, formerly known as Kuebler Builders, Inc., recently completed Medical Park III, the second of four planned office buildings being developed by Buck Schimpf of Chattanooga, Tenn.

The complex is located behind Parkridge Hospital on Third Street and within close proximity to Memorial Hospital and Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga, Tenn.