Kielder Observatory; observe the stars without doing harm

For my whole life I've been interested in the universe for a bit. Just a bit. But I've never been much into observatories and such. However, a few minutes ago I got a damn good reason to be.

It's named the Kielder Observatory and it's located in the UK. A few years ago some amateur astronomers wanted a new centre to watch their precious stars and a design competition was held. Charles Barclay and his fellow architects won

Above one of the early sketches. The building is almost entirely made up of Douglas-fir, so a woody structure.

More importantly it's claimed to be self-sustainable. The power need is fulfilled by a load of solar panels and a wind turbine which generates a rough 2.5 kW. Also there are placed composting toilets inside to forsee the astronomers in their sanitary needs. (To be completely honest, I visited wikipedia to learn what a composting toilet is. In fact it's a pretty simple application. Such a toilet manages to convert human waste into compost.) That's what I call self-sustainability!

Furthermore the Kielder observatory is the perfect example that an eco-friendly building can look good. (Damn good in my opinion).

Some more pictures through Dezeen.

-jdh