Conservatory for Biodiversity Education & Research

CBEaR is a new highly sustainable, cutting edge, multi-purpose facility featuring conservatories, greenhouses, research spaces, classrooms and support spaces. Targeting Living Building Core and Energy Petal Certification, the project receives services from adjacent geothermal wells, photovoltaic panels and wind turbines. CBEaR will serve as home for biological research, but also welcomes visitors who can tour the tropical, desert, cold, and temperate conservatories, and then meet in the large classrooms which open out to the gardens. 

The Appalachian State University Innovation District master plan focused on the creation of a 28-acre learning district involving the synthesis of three main components: Buildings—including housing and three research and academic buildings; Energy—a district wide energy system with over 500 geothermal wells, 4 wind turbines, and a central energy plant; and, Site—the unifying element for the district consisting of performative native landscapes that will accent ASU’s “Campus in a Forest” identity and connect the district as a whole. Given the spatial constraints of the site and the spatial needs of these elements, a key element to this plan was an implementation framework that accounts for the synergies between these elements to allow for a holistic realization of the vision.