GreenDigs Blog

September 2, 2009 at 11:00 am. A public groundbreaking ceremony is planned for Rural Learning Center; a project designed to achieve the highest LEED standards. Platinum.

This project is creating plenty of buzz and getting noticed not only locally, but regionally and even nationally. RLC has been the muscle behind an aggressive and successful rural revitalization movement in Howard and surrounding Minor County within the past decade. The new building will have an array of green features along with cutting edge sustainable technologies, and it will truly become an example for other rural communities in the future.  

What a great way to showcase rural South Dakota!

This past month, Armstrong introduced a new acoustical ceiling tile  – Tierra – which is composed of 45% of rapidly renewable jute fiber and has Cradle to Cradle (C2C) Silver Certification.  (Cradle to Cradle measures how environmentally sound or “green” product is by levels of certification – platinum, gold, silver, or basic.)

Armstrong markets Tierra as the “greenest” ceiling tile system available in the marketplace, and the visual appearance of the tile is virtually identical to a fine textured acoustical ceiling tile.  The performance acoustics aren’t bad either – it has a NRC of .85 and LR of .88.  The only downside is that because of the jute composition (i.e. soft fibers that cannot form edge profiles), it only has square edge profiles available in 2′x2′ or 2′x4′ sizes. No information on cost yet, but it would be an easy way to help target LEED Materials & Resources credit 6 for rapidly renewable products. Check it out on their Website.