Page 25 - Fall_2021

North George Mason Drive façade. Photo © Tom Holdsworth

View across the biofilter garden toward the below-grade multi-purpose rooms, Photo © Tom Holdsworth
with the roof of the main fitness facilities in the background.

Chapter Design Award in Architecture Creating room for the community center, which includes
Lubber Run Community Center athletic facilities, multi-purpose rooms, as well as new
office space for Arlington County’s Parks and Recreation
Arlington, VA
Department—equal to 55,000 square feet of program space,
VMDO Architects plus parking—necessitated encroaching on the park’s highly-
valued woodland and building below grade. “There was quite a
Landscape Architect: OCULUS negotiation about the extent to which we extended the building
Structural Engineer: Fox & Associates into the woods,” Celentano reported. The community was
MEP Engineer: CMTA highly involved in the visioning process and advocated strongly
General Contractor: MCN Build for the site’s natural resources. Sophisticated models and
fly-throughs aided the team in demonstrating to community
Lubber Run, Arlington County’s first net-zero community members that responsible environmental stewardship guided
center, demonstrates new ways of thinking about the the design process every step of the way.
relationship between building and environment. Occupying The resulting community center is comfortable and open,
a wooded site adjacent to the 22-acre Lubber Run Park, the offering varied zones of experience and multiple points to
building is cleverly situated to highlight the beauty of its connect with different aspects of the natural environment. A
surroundings with minimal disturbance. “As opposed to nature-inspired palette of colors and materials blends perfectly
thinking of it as a building that you’re placing in the landscape, within the landscape. Eager to reduce waste and to utilize
you think of the landscape as accepting the building,” said resources mindfully, the design team brought in a portable
VMDO Architects principal Joe Celentano, AIA, LEED sawmill to repurpose mature trees cut during construction.
AP, describing the team’s design approach. “One of the key Designers had worried that the building’s thermal mass
balancing acts was the way that the building engaged with not concrete structure, while highly energy efficient, could have
just the park but with nature in general,” Celentano added.

BUILDING COMMUNITY 23