Lubber Run Community Center
Featuring net-zero energy ready design and a landscape-focused approach to the surrounding park, Lubber Run Community Center offers a holistic response to an urban challenge – ultimately creating public space that is greater and greener for residents.
Project Details
- Client: Arlington County Parks and Recreation
- Location: Arlington, VA
- Scope: New Construction
- Completion: 2020
- Size: 102,468 SF
- Performance: LEED Gold; Net-Zero Energy Ready | EUI 23 kBTU/sf/year (measured) | 42% reduction (regional CBECs 2003 Public Assembly - Recreation baseline
Featuring net-zero energy design and a landscape-focused approach to the surrounding park, Lubber Run Community Center offers a holistic response to an urban challenge and creates public space that is greater and greener for neighbors. Lubber Run Community Center replaces a previous 1950’s-era community building on a tight 4.5-acre site that also includes new outdoor recreation spaces and amenities.
The team applied an empathetic approach to gathering cross-generational voices that informed the design of numerous blended spaces connected to nature. Robust local partnerships supported solutions for a sustainable, place-based design that integrates interior and exterior public and programmed spaces. The resulting hybrid solution blurs the distinction between indoors and outdoors and encourages occupants to feel connected to the park landscape around them.
The 50,000 sf replacement structure includes multipurpose rooms for recreation programs, a fitness center, a gymnasium, a preschool program, community meeting rooms, a kitchen, reception and office space for county-wide Parks and Recreation staff. Outdoor programmed and open recreation spaces include a playground, a volleyball and basketball court, covered gathering space, and improvements to site circulation and streetscape.
Building on the local commitment to sustainability, Lubber Run Community Center achieved LEED Gold and is designed as a net-zero energy facility. Site layout, building massing, envelope design, and systems design were developed with energy performance in mind. Additionally, trees that were felled during construction were milled and used to clad the primary circulation pathways inside.
There was lots of community involvement and excitement surrounding the new design and plan. Attention was paid to functionality, energy efficiency, sustainability – and great design. This is truly a community project.
Collaborators
MEP Engineering: CMTA
Structural Engineering: Fox & Associates
Civil Engineering: Bowman
Landscape Architecture: Oculus
Environmental Graphic Design / Wayfinding: Iconograph
Contractor: MCN Build
Project Photography: Alan Karchmer and Tom Holdsworth
Additional Drawings
Design Drivers
Sustainability
Sustainability Strategies
As a LEED For Communities Platinum winner, Arlington County is a sustainability trailblazer – combining forward-thinking environmental goals into its energy-use standards while also balancing issues around livability, diversity, and increasing development. Building on this commitment to sustainability, Lubber Run Community Center was conceived as a zero-energy ready facility. Site layout, building massing, envelope design, and systems design were driven by the goal of maximizing the on-site solar array while optimizing the building’s energy performance.
Through thoughtful MEP systems, careful attention to acoustics, and the incorporation of biophilic elements, the building provides a comfortable interior environment with fresh air and abundant, glare-free daylight.
In terms of material use, experimentation with a Thermawall system increases the project’s energy performance while decreasing the number of materials. The project also uses a glue-laminated wood structure above grade, which reduces the project’s embodied energy and provides biophilic benefits to building occupants. Trees that were felled during construction were milled and used to clad the primary circulation pathways inside.
Community Engagement
Together, Arlington Parks and Recreation and VMDO developed a context-specific community engagement process involving a series of active public workshops that facilitated community feedback in an effort to promote equity, access, public health, and sustainable design. The team applied an empathetic approach to gathering cross-generational and inter-disciplinary voices that informed the design of numerous blended spaces connected to nature – spaces inside, outside, and thresholds in between, interweaving building and landscape.
Through community meetings, online feedback, and on-site engagement, community voices helped inform the initial stages of design. The first meeting focused on understanding the site and neighborhood, spatial characteristics and materials of different program spaces, and community fears and desires for the project. Design drivers were derived from this feedback as well as from existing site features, board directives, and sustainability goals. At subsequent meetings, multiple schemes were presented, evaluated and refined, resulting in a hybrid solution that is integrated into the park while still presenting a strong recognizable presence in the community.
