Climate change - week 7

For an assignment this week we were asked to think about a building or part of a built environment near where we live, that is adapted to a changing climate.

I started thinking about one I know  very well:

I volunteer at the National Botanic Garden of Wales 
where I'm a member of the science team.

We at the Garden are all very proud of our Great Glasshouse.  Built in 2000, it's the world's biggest single-span glasshouse, home to a major collection of plants from the 'Mediterranean' climate zones of the world - needing a climate somewhat different to that of Carmarthenshire!   

The temperature and humidity in the Glasshouse are controlled by computer-controlled opening and closing windows, so very little heating is needed but if it is, n the depths of a cold winter, it comes from biomass boilers which also heat the many other buildings on the site.

A large solar array at another part of the site provides electricity, all water running of the glasshouse roof is collected, as is other waste water, with water for the garden's plants and decorative water-features also coming from a borehole on-site.  Toilet waste goes through a reedbed system.  This all leads to a self-regulating system which should be well able to respond to changing future climate and extreme weather events.  The garden also incorporates 'Waun Las' - a 400 acre working organic farm, with traditional breeds of sheep and cattle, and including wildflower meadows, reinstated 'rhos' pasture and rare fungi.  Waun Las is designated as a National Nature Reserve.

The garden's science team - including undergraduate and graduate students, as well as volunteers from a variety of backgrounds, all led by a professional Botanist - are also researching the impact of a changing climate, and other changes to the natural environment, on our plants and ecosystem both here in Wales and the UK, and further afield, with joint research and information exchange with gardens and research teams in Korea, Australia and China.