How to Design a Sustainable Recreation Center
When you run a big recreation center, you can have big energy usage bills. When you’re designing your recreation center, it can be worth your time to consider implementing sustainable solutions. There has been a huge swing in the industry towards making buildings more environmentally friendly. In the long run, these solutions can save you money and they leave less of an environmental footprint. In most cases, these solutions offer a win-win situation for your recreation center.
Sustainable Solutions
There are many different aspects of your facility that you can incorporate into your green building design. If it’s feasible to include all of these solutions, it can save you a lot of money down the line.
Electricity
Most recreation centers use a very large amount of energy. There are a few ways to curb this usage, the most prominent being the installation of solar panels. Solar panels are huge producers of energy. With a solar panel system in place, you can use all of the energy they draw before having to utilize energy from the grid. This will greatly cut down on your electricity costs. Installing LED lights is also a great way to save on electricity costs.
Water
Many recreation centers house a pool, and even if they don’t, there is still a good amount of water being used every day. In your locker rooms and bathrooms, you can install water-saving devices on your sinks and shower heads. Making sure you have automatic shutoffs on your sinks will also save you water. You should also consider putting in waterless urinals and dual flush toilets. These toilets really cut down on water usage.
Other Considerations
There are all kinds of unique solutions to your sustainable design needs. For instance, a new technology that is being used in green recreation centers is kinetic exercise bikes. These bikes produce energy for your recreation center as people exercise on them. If you really dedicate yourself to making your facility green you can see great benefits. With a continuous dedication to green technologies, your center could even reach net zero. This is when your facility produces the same amount of energy it uses. If you ever reached a point where it made more than it produced, you could sell that energy back to the grid. There are plenty of reasons to love a sustainable design.
Sports Facilities Advisory Can Help You
Sports Facilities Advisory has extensive experience building recreation centers. Let us help you design and assess the feasibility of your green recreation building project. We can help you to be sustainable and build a facility you can be proud of.