The green shape of things to come

It is a place with an inbuilt wow factor and if this does not stir the imagination of those who come here to learn, nothing will.

It may look sumptuous but beyond the good looks is a practical statement. The construction methods are the last word in energy cheeseparing – indeed it's already been assessed as the best in the country. It can be run for free in terms of carbon energy consumption and it's all operated by computer.

The Bramall Learning Centre at RHS Harlow Carr in Harrogate has cost 3.3m. It's part of the Royal Horticultural Society's commitment to school gardening. The past few years has seen a sharp rise in the demand for school gardening education and schools themselves are now supposed to turn themselves into models of sustainability.

The RHS came up with a national outreach programme where every child has the chance to pick up a trowel and start cultivating. As part of that, schools around the country are offered free visits to the RHS's four UK gardens and Harlow Carr's ability to accommodate them was the least impressive. Now that has changed and schools from all over this region will come to spend half a day in the classroom and half a day exploring the garden. It will be used by up to 10,000 school children and adult learners each year.

One of the first to enjoy the experience was Samuel McKay, 11, from Boston Spa. A pupil at Ashfield College, Samuel entered an open competition to design a willow sculpture for next week's official opening. Prompted by a recent sighting of a roe deer near his home he put this idea forward and won. So on a hot lunchtime earlier this week, Samuel and his mother came to claim the prize. They were led to a shady awning in the new Montague Burton Teaching Garden where Phil Bradley was busily constructing part of the deer from Samuel's drawings.

Phil, from Cumbria, runs a basket making company and introduced Sam to materials not all that familiar to the modern-day schoolboy – the whippy, slender willow rods traditionally known as withies.

Under the expert's eye, the withies were selected and the stag roe took shape nicely. Then master and pupil wandered off around the garden to search for something suitable for antlers. They would be leaving a lasting artistic mark – a centrepiece for the new wildlife pond at the heart of the Montague Burton garden.

Elizabeth Balmforth, the newly appointed curator at Harlow Carr, says: "We're opening the UK's most eco-friendly learning centre for gardeners, and celebrating our diamond (60th) anniversary as the premier garden in the North."

The two-storey centre is S-shaped and is built into the hill so that it seems to flow down it like a wave. There's not a straight line to be seen, just like Nature itself. It fits snugly into the surroundings and its fuzzy sedum roof adds to the impression that it's a natural part of the landscape.

A 15kw turbine is designed to generate enough electricity for the building.

The centre will import electricity from the National Grid when there's no wind and export it when conditions are blowy. Over 12 months, it is supposed to balance out so that there's no net use of electricity.

The turbine circulates the water for the underfloor heating provided by a ground source heat pump with five boreholes at the back of the building and there will be more free energy from solar panels creating hot water. Where Building Regulations now require an airtightness factor of 10, this is three. The building is partly funded by the Carbon Trust who will keep on monitoring it. BREEAM – the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method – has given the learning centre its highest rating.

The three teaching spaces are triple glazed and the windows automatically open depending on temperature and also CO2 levels (so no more soporific, yawning children).

Librarian Jane Trodd is getting original historical material together and promises "something for everyone" – children and RHS members alike. For the latter there are treasures like Curtis's Botanical magazine or Flower Gardens Displayed dating from 1792 which has sumptuous colour illustrations. There are shelves of Gardeners Chronicle dating from the Victorian period.

Harlow Carr starts halfway down a steep hillside, so they have no control of the water coming from above. Anyone who has visited on a particularly rainy day may have experienced mini-streams gushing down its immaculate gravel pathways. Cunningly, the learning centre is also able to turn this to advantage. The water flow will be managed by directing it into underground tanks and this "rainwater harvesting" will then be used for things like flushing the toilets. There's no mains water supply.

Eco Arc, who were at the time based north of York, were the architects. Overall it's one of the masterplans drawn up for all the RHS gardens by the York-based Landscape Agency who now employ celebrity TV gardener Matthew Wilson.

As curator at Harlow Carr, Wilson did landscaping for the learning centre.

Debbie Handslip who is in charge of the schools side of things, surveyed her immaculate airy classrooms with the whole panorama of high summer Harlow Carr laid out resplendently in front and said, "It's a lovely place to be, a special place."

No-one could disagree.

The Librarian, Jane Trodd, is looking for volunteers, anyone interested can contact her at [email protected]