Imaginon

[atlrvr]

Sounds like they took the cheap route....I believed they originally planned opening up a grand entrance onto Tryon with a starbucks-like coffee shop adjacent to the new Tryon entrance.

[Neo]

Imaginon has officially become Charlotte's first LEED certified structure, with a Silver rating from the US Green Building Council.

My wife is currently obtaining her master's in Library Science and I was priveledged enough to be able to tag along this past Saturday when her class took a tour of Imaginon. The Imaginon employee that lead our ~two hour tour explained some of the LEED elements in the building that I thought may be of some interest so I took notes.

• The bookshelves are made from compressed wheat (the unused part of the crop)

• The colored tiles (purple, green, etc.) are made from recycled glass

• The carpet is made from wool

• The non-carpeted floors are made from recycled shoe rubber and tires

• Bathroom stalls are made from compressed laundry detergent containers

• The stone columns throughout the building are made from unused headstones (i.e. broken)

In addition the building took eight years from idea conception to being open to the public so some thought certainly went into this building. And as many of you likely already know, this is the only building of its kind in the world that offers such amenities to kids.

[uptownliving]

Very cool.

I saw in the paper that this Sunday there will be a free 30 min tour of Imaginon to show off it's LEED features. So sounds like anyone interested in doing a condensed version of the tour that Neo got should show up at 5:30pm this Sunday at Imaginon. After the tour they will show the documentry The Greening of Southie on the building of Boston's first LEED certified residential building. There will also be a panel discussion with local builders after the film about Green building in Charlotte.

More info here:

http://www.lightfactory.org/factory_films/current.htm