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The Co|Lab as seen from the street. All photos © John Cole Photography

It’s Not Easy
It’s Not Easy Project: Co|Lab,
2757 Hartland Road, Falls Church, VA

Architects: William McDonough + Partners
Landscape Architects: Siteworks
Being Green
Being Green Structural Engineers: Simpson Gumpertz
& Heger
MEP Engineers: Staengl Engineering
Contractor: HITT Contracting

HITT’s Co|Lab Plumbs Unprecedented

Depths in Sustainable Design by Steven K. Dickens, AIA, LEED AP

The sustainability movement has had a profound impact on stands out among its neighbors, a strip of low-profile suburban
21st-century architecture and construction, but the results are office buildings in Northern Virginia. Moreover, there are some
not always evident to the casual observer. Some green buildings obvious signifiers of its sustainable design. From the street one
feature panel displays highlighting their sustainable features, can see an area of vegetated wall and an array of photovoltaic
or even real-time readouts of energy usage. Some incorporate panels. Inside there’s a lobby “dashboard” that shows, in easy-
aesthetic hints, such as sun screens, in their façades. Owners to-read graphics, the building’s consumption and generation of
of green buildings get indirect evidence when their utility power. The interiors also have a lot of exposed wood surfaces
bills arrive. For the most part, however, the depth of effort to with metal connector pieces—why, exactly, may be unclear, but
create green buildings is invisible, locked in the particulars of the viewer intuits that it’s more than just an aesthetic choice.
materials, systems, and design strategies. For all these clues, however, one probably wouldn’t realize
HITT Contracting’s Co|Lab, designed by William that the Co|Lab is, arguably, the greenest building in the
McDonough + Partners (WM+P), is an exceptional example of Washington metropolitan area so far. This is not an accident.
this phenomenon. Not that it’s a low-key building: It certainly Exceptional projects require exceptional aspiration, and Kim
34 IT’S NOT EASY BEING GREEN