Babcock Ranch, Fla.

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Mastering Disasters

America’s first solar-powered town stands up to Hurricane Ian in 2022.

Standing up to any hurricane is no small feat, let alone one as savage as Hurricane Ian. With incessant 100-plus mph winds, rain, and catastrophic flood waters, Ian is said to have been the deadliest hurricane to hit Florida since 1935. But as Southwest Florida struggled against Ian’s brutal onslaught, at least one bright spot emerged.

Meet Babcock Ranch, located 12 miles northeast of Fort Myers. Built 30 miles inland and 30 ft. above sea level, Babcock Ranch has been designed since its inception to be environmentally friendly, fully sustainable, and able to withstand extreme weather events. For this reason, all utility lines are buried underground, and it uses building codes that meet Category 4 storm standards. The precautions appear to have paid off. While nearby areas endured power outages and flooding during Hurricane Ian, despite wind gusts exceeding 150 mph, not one of the solar panels were taken by the storm and the lights at Babcock Ranch did not go out.

“The only people in Charlotte County with power were Babcock residents,” notes Amy Wicks, a Vice President at Kimley-Horn and a consulting civil engineer for Babcock Ranch. “We maintained power through the whole storm—across the street had no power, we had power.”

Designed to withstand extreme weather, Babcock Ranch passed the test when the community did not lose power during 2022’s Hurricane Ian.

PROJECT SPECS

Project: Babcock Ranch, Florida

Developer: Kitson & Partners—Syd Kitson, Chairman and CEO

Civil Engineer: Kimley-Horn and a consulting civil engineer

Images: Courtesy, Babcock Ranch

Surface Water System

Strategic redundancies. These are among the keys to Babcock Ranch’s performance during Hurricane Ian, according to Wicks. “The whole system is designed much more like a natural environment,” she explains. If one thing stops working, then something else in the system will back it up.

“With the surface water system, if you get a blockage because an alligator crawls into a pipe and dies and blocks the pipe—which, can happen—then the water can just flow another way, and it’s not a big deal. If a tree falls in a hurricane and blocks the flow of the water, one way, it can go another way.”

Wicks points to the massive lawn near the Babcock Ranch lake house as another example. To the casual observer it might appear to serve as a nice space for community gatherings—sometimes equipped with bounce houses, food, and fun festivities—but that is not all it is. During extreme rainfall, if the water level rises too high, the excess water will back up harmlessly into this space. The roads remain clear.

“Those types of backups are absolutely everywhere,” she says. “We intentionally did not interfere with any of the natural water flow ways. Instead, we put preserve around them, and not just right up next to them, but in most places at least 300 ft. on either side.”

STORMWATER SYSTEM

National Stormwater Trust (NST)

Smart Pond www.nationalstormwater.com

Hurricane-Resilient Products

Many hurricane-resilient offerings contributed to the community’s stellar performance against Ian. “My home has impact glass all around, so the only vulnerability for us was our screened lanai,” says Lisa Hall, a resident of Babcock Ranch, as well as spokesperson for the developer. “We decided to install ‘Storm Smart’ screens to close that gap.” Storm Smart’s window screens protect structures from hurricaneforce winds by way of tightly woven polypropylene fabric that shields the interior of a home from up to 95% of rain and wind while reducing wind velocity by up to 95%. Though Hall and her husband, Tom, were in Italy when Hurricane Ian hit their Florida home, protecting the structure was easily achieved by simply pulling up an app, pressing a button and rolling down the screens from half a world away. “They are also handy for knocking down heat in the summer,” she adds. “They really shade out a lot of the light, yet you can still see out.”

SOLAR PANELS

Positioned within the public spaces of Babcock Ranch, SolarNow solar trees combine technology, functionality and art. The unique structures also serve as charging stations to power handheld devices while generating emissions-free energy.

Florida Power & Light Co.

SolarNow Solar Trees solarnow.fpl.com

Improvement Makes Perfect

Despite the recent success, the forward thinkers at Babcock Ranch are not yet finished with their forward thinking. The quest to improve is unending, according to Jennifer Languell, who provides sustainability oversight for the buildings at Babcock Ranch. Following Ian, the team held a review session to document any “lessons learned.” The most notable outcome?

Energy Sustainability

The tagline at Babcock is, “A Life Powered by the Sun,” and, according to its website, the community is “America’s first solar-powered town.” It broke ground in 2015 with the construction of the first 75 megawatt solar array owned and operated by Florida Power & Light (FPL). A second 75 array went online in 2019, and now, across 870 acres there are nearly 700,000 solar panels that can produce enough energy to power nearly 30,000 homes. The facilities are connected to the grid to offer its surplus to others.

Part emergency shelter, part gymnasium for the local school system, the 40,600-sq.-ft. heavy-duty storm shelter at Babcock Ranch—capacity 1,300-plus—is built to International Code Council 500 standards.

EV CHARGING

Each house in Babcock Ranch comes with either an electric car battery charging station or else it is prewired with the capability to easily install one. Residences must be equipped with a NEMA 14/50 plug which provides 220 for electric vehicles.

EVolution

In-home electric car battery charging station; Public electric car battery charging station evolutionevnetwork.com

Many Florida developments feature traditional stormwater ponds to contain excess rainfall and stormwater runoff, but larger storms frequently result in these ponds overflowing and flooding nearby spaces. Cutting-edge Smart Pond stormwater systems connect these types of ponds to live weather forecasting data that project a storm’s impact before it arrives. The system allows controllers to adjust water levels as needed to provide adequate stormwater management.

When Hurricane Ian arrived, Babcock Ranch only possessed the data and monitoring capabilities of this type of system. The information provided peace of mind as it reported that the system was not pushed to capacity, but to stay ahead of potentially worse events, Babcock Ranch is planning to add the functional elements as well. This will allow for the remote management of water levels. If a future need arises, facilitators will be able to discharge water to ensure adequate capacity and avert flooding. The quest for resiliency continues at Babcock Ranch.

WINDOWS + DOORS

The shelter is equipped with sturdy glazed aluminum doors and windows by Insulgard—certified by UL to meet the ICC 500-2020 and the recently updated FEMA P-361-2021 guidelines for use in tornado and hurricane-safe rooms and shelters.

Insulgard STORMDEFEND

Windows and Doors www.insulgard.com

RESILIENCE: WILDFIRE

STOREFRONT SYSTEM

Aluminum and glass thermal storefront system offers improved thermal performance and multiple glass plane options.

Old Castle Series 3000T Multiplane Storefront System www.obe.com

Dual-pane windows with tempered glass can help windows resist fractures caused by wildfire heat.

RAILING SYSTEM

The elevated patio is made of cast-in-place concrete; a stairway with custom-built metal railings by a local subcontractor, SR Iron—cable railing components.

Ultra-Tec www.ultra-tec.com

SLATTED FAÇADE

At the gable ends of the event center, the siding consists of öko skin. The cementitious product provides the character of wood without trying to emulate wood, according to Tomasi. The skin is available in a variety of colors and textures. The remainder of the siding consists of cement plaster stucco.

Rieder öko skin www.rieder.cc

Function

Paradise Ridge Winery

FIRE-RESISTANT VENT

A corrosion-resistant screen blocks air-born embers aimed at the structure while the fire is still far away. Once the blaze gets closer, and if the vent reaches critical temperature, the intumescent coating on the honeycomb matrix structure will expand, resulting in a barrier against flames and embers.

Vulcan Vent

Fire & Ember Resistant Continuous Soffit Vent (VSC2120) www.vulcanvents.com

Paradise Ridge Winery, Santa Rosa, Calif.

A leveled event center in a wildfire-prone area is rebuilt with several solutions that equip it for greater wildfire resilience.

ROOFING SYSTEM

Standing seam metal roof panels are one of the most non-combustible roofing materials with the greatest strength to stand up to fires.

Taylor Metal Products Versa-Span Structural Snap-Lock www.taylormetal.com

The ruthless Tubbs

Fire of 2017 burned-tothe-ground the Event Center at Paradise Ridge Winery in Santa Rosa, Calif. The blaze reduced the two-story structure to little more than rubble, but not for long.

For the rebuild, ownership wanted the center to remind customers of its predecessor—charming and with idyllic views. But it also needed to be fire resistant, because the project is in a Wildland-Urban Interface zone—at a high risk of catastrophic wildfire. As such, building in enough defensible space around the structure was critically important. Ditto for arming the exterior with ignition-resistant materials—the whole exterior should consist of non-combustible products. But you cannot stop there, says Don Tomasi, Design Principal at TLCD Architecture.

“There are two main things that cause buildings to combust,” he says. One is embers falling on the roof, and the other is embers or sparks going up into the attic vents.

The rebuilt structure in Santa Rosa has a shell loaded with noncombustible, ignition resistant materials. But, Tomasi advises to not forget about the vents. Wind-blown embers can fly for miles, and they have the ability to enter a structure through these vents in an attic, crawlspace and other spaces. Vents tend to have negative pressure, so they draw embers in, explains Tomasi. All too frequently, an otherwise well-fortified shell is rendered worthless when an ember finds its way inside to ignite something combustible within and then burn from the inside out.

PROJECT SPECS

Project: Paradise Ridge Winery

Event Center

Location: Santa Rosa, Calif.

Architect: Don Tomasi, Design

Principal at TLCD Architecture

Size: 7,400 square feet

Budget: $6 million

Completion: 2019

Images: TLCD Architecture

RESILIENCE: SEISMIC

San Bernardino Center for Global Innovation at Cal State

This center for higher learning is prepared to keep students safe in the wake of an earthquake.

The magnificent campus of California State University, situated at the base of the San Bernardino mountains, dazzles the eye of those who appreciate mother nature, but along with the site’s picturesque ambiance comes some inherent design challenges. For Cal State’s new threestory, 71,000-sq.-ft.

San Bernardino Center for Global Innovation, LPA Design Studios was tasked with combating a landscape with forceful winds, intense sunlight, and a real potential for seismic activity—the school is located less than a mile from the San Andreas Fault.

Though the seismic system consists of relatively common products, everything had to be upsized by “about 50% higher than what I would typically deal with,” explains John Wilson, who served as Structural Engineer on the project for LPA. The seismic force resisting system utilizes buckling restrained braces manufactured by

CoreBrace. “It has a steel core that is like a steel strand,” he adds, “and then it is embedded inside of a pipe that’s filled with concrete.” This unique brace-frame system is an efficient way of dissipating energy. “The steel is very strong in tension, but under compression, it has a tendency to buckle.

The concrete-filled tube keeps the steel from buckling when it goes into compression.”

The strategic locations of these elements were able to provide the required seismic force resistance while also reducing torsions that could be induced by the L-shaped floor plate.

PROJECT SPECS

Project: San Bernardino

Center for Global Innovation at Cal State

Location:

San Bernardino, Calif.

Architect: LPA Design Studios, Orange County, Calif.

Size: 70,000 sq. ft.

Cost: $41.1 million

Opened: 2019

Photography: RMA Photography

Columns

The eye-catching forest of blue pillars serves as more than just a fashion statement. They also hold the building up while creating additional shaded areas for students to socialize. Due to the area’s powerful seismic forces coupled with the height of the pillars, wide flange columns were used, says Wilson.

“The wide-flange columns were sized to resist gravity loads even as the building starts to move during a seismic event,” he says. “This results in larger members than what might typically be seen in non-seismic areas.”

The metal panels wrapping the structural steel columns were custom-fabricated, prefinished aluminum covers made in two sizes to provide visual interest and reference back to the concept of a bluepillar forest. These were manufactured by SAF, and the LPA design team worked with the contractor and the installer regarding the detailing at the vertical and horizontal joints to minimize the size and depth of reveals.

Saf

Blue Pillars wrapped in metal panels www.saf.com