From above, the buildings’ green roofs blend into the surrounding landscape context. The campus design took inspiration from Dian’s original tent nestled in the forest at the Karisoke Research Center more than 50 years ago. The campus footprint and develop an immersive Local labor and materials were used to minimize Their support enabled the Fossey Fund to move forward on the ambition to build a permanent home in Rwanda, accelerating its science and conservation work. When DeGeneres and her wife, Portia de Rossi, announced the official creation of The Ellen Fund, a nonprofit that works to protect endangered animals, they also named the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund as their first grant recipient. The “Purpose Built” approach considers how an organization can make systemic change and aligns design to support the mission through a capital project feasibility study. Led through the ”Purpose Built” process by MASS Principal Patricia Gruits, MASS helped the Fossey Fund assess its design needs based on its mission to make gorillas an entry point for a lifetime of conservation activism. MASS and the Fossey Fund began working together in 2015. Once feared by Dian Fossey to be extinct by the year 2000, mountain gorillas represent a rare conservation success story, with the population in the region growing from a low of 250 in the 1980s to more than 600 today. Its work combines daily protection and study of individual gorillas with people-centered programs aimed at training the next generation of African conservationists and addressing the basic needs of the people who share the gorillas’ forest home through food and water security, livelihood, and education programs. Teaching, engagement, and laboratory spaces.įounded by the legendary Dian Fossey, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund is the world’s largest and longest-running organization dedicated to gorilla conservation. The excavated volcanic stones, often considered a waste product, were used as material within the campus, reducing waste and the need for new quarried material. The seismic forces were managed through engineered ductile reinforced concrete cores. MASS’s Rwanda-based engineering team developed a robust structural solution to respond to this context. The ground below the buildings was formed through volcanic activity and contains large volcanic stones. Tectonic activity makes this area among the most seismically hazardous in sub-Saharan Africa. The landscape, water systems, and sustainability methods serve as an educational model for students and visitors motivated by conservation, and as a research demonstration for reforestation efforts the Fossey Fund is undertaking in the region.Įngineering solutions for tectonic shifts were also required, as the campus is built adjacent to the Virunga Mountains, a chain of volcanoes formed by the Great Rift Valley. The system, the first and only of its kind in Rwanda, is gravity fed, reducing overall energy use. Effluent wastewater is treated naturally in a constructed wetland, which features a series of ponds below the conservation gallery that filter and clean the water before it soaks back into the ground. The campus design also prioritized water conservation by harvesting rainwater from building roofs for reuse including to flush toilets. Spanning multiple buildings and 12 acres, theĬampus anchors the region as a conservation As part of MASS and the Fossey Fund’s commitment to the regeneration of that land, more than 250,000 native plants were propagated and planted throughout the campus, creating a reforestation research site that might also inform future park expansion. The land upon which the campus was built had been converted to agriculture and grazing space. MASS worked with TEN x TEN, a Minneapolis-based landscape architecture practice, to design a regenerative landscape and green roofs complementary to the surrounding habitat. National Park, integrated into the surroundingĪs an extension of the Volcanoes National Park, the landscape design for the campus transformed the existing site from an agricultural plot to a reforested, biodiverse landscape that showcases four key gorilla habitat ecologies: mixed forest, bamboo, hagenia forest, and meadow. The campus is located adjacent to the Volcanoes The Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund is a multi-building, $13.4 million (USD) investment that anchors the region as a conservation hub for ecological preservation and education in Africa. The entrance at The Ellen DeGeneres Campus of
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