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Regenerative Design
forward. For instance, at TESS 2.X, we heard from several industry leaders making strides towards regenerative design. As an example, Liseberg, a nearly 100-year-old amusement park in Gothenburg, Sweden, which features 40 rides and attractions in a bucolic park setting, is powered entirely by renewable wind energy and produces 100% biogas for heating at its park and hotel. Additionally, Wet’n’Wild Hawaii, a water park in Kapoli, has a 1.3-megawatt solar system in the form of solar carport arrays, which makes it Hawaii’s first 100% solar-powered attraction. The system, installed by Sunspear Energy, is made up of 2,958 high-efficiency, 440- watt solar panels which are expected to fully power the park during operation hours. Teams from Curtis + Ginsberg Architects, Bowden Associates Consulting Group, Event Network, Theatre Projects, Electrosonic, EXP, and Walt Disney Imagineering also openly shared their active commitments and results in this space.
Moving Towards a Global Industry Standard Approaching design and architecture from an environmentally conscious perspective has been relatively straightforward in other building types compared to theme park and entertainment destinations. Applying these principles to the responsible design of theme parks and large-scale entertainment destinations is much more nuanced and complex.
These venues are exceedingly resource intensive, create an immense amount of waste, require inordinate amounts of energy to run, and on top of that, make a habit of cooling the exterior on hot days and heating it on cold days – with doors open at all times when guests are present. At this juncture, embracing transparency will be key for all theme parks and entertainment destinations. One way is via reporting, which has been done well in other sectors of leisure and travel sectors. For example, Aspen Ski Company has reported its metric tons (of CO2) per skier per day, and a detailed breakdown of how this figure is reached, for more than 20 years. Taking this a step further, we believe there should be a green rating system designed specifically for themed entertainment venues. Despite their significant impact on site waste and from the high energy and water used to operate the facility, current green rating systems do not consider the unique programs and operations of these sites. Cuningham and EXP are developing a system termed Resilient and Innovative Design for Efficient Solutions (RIDES). We propose that this would consider:
• Transportation: CO2 emissions from onsite transportation and potentially guest transportation to and from the venue.
• Water: CO2 emissions from onsite water use and generation, either assuming utility water transmission rates are industry defaults or potentially including calculations that have actual transmission rates from utility.
• Energy: CO2 emissions from onsite energy use and generation, either assuming utility water transmission rates are industry defaults or potentially including calculations that have actual transmission rates from utility.
• Waste: CO2 emissions from waste used and diversion rates and breakdown of waste end uses, potentially including waste-to-energy data if utilized.
The certification categories would look something like the below:
This rating system would potentially adapt to changing reasonable expectations as regenerative design is widely implemented – for instance, in 20 years, there could be net positive categories.
Looking Ahead
The bottom line is, environmentally conscious design is no longer an option, and we need to move beyond simply causing less harm. Regenerative design and creating a global industry that is open and highly transparent will be the only way to achieve positive impacts across the board.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021
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