Fairfax Village Center uses environmentally friendly building materials
FORT BELVOIR, Va. -- The recently completed neighborhood center in Fairfax Village on Fort Belvoir is one of the greenest buildings on post, according to Clark Realty.
"Military families and the Army will benefit from a state-of-the art facility. It will serve as an educational tool and amenity for the children at Fort Belvoir, and a new benchmark for sustainable facilities on Army installations," said Tom Boylan, LEED AP development associate with Clark Realty Capital, LLC.
With the Fairfax Village Neighborhood Center project Clark Realty is pursuing The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Platinum. A formal certification from U.S. Green Building Council is expected this summer.
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System™, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, encourages and accelerates global adoption of sustainable green building and development practices through the creation and implementation of universally understood and accepted tools and performance criteria.
LEED is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.
"The Fairfax Village Neighborhood Center is very unique. The design of the building and grounds was developed specifically to achieve the highest certification level of LEED, a green building rating tool that is now standard in the building industry," said Boylan.
The center has a conference room used for meetings, presentations, and classes. It has various "green" features like CO2 monitors, lighting controls, also low-e windows that provide daylight to help create a comfortable educational environment.
The bathrooms in the center are where the majority of water savings are generated. Sensory faucets that turn off once you pull your hands away, dual-flush toilets, and low-flow urinals all contribute to this building's goal of achieving water use reduction of over 40 percent.
From the orientation of the structure itself to the renewable energy solar panel system on top of the building, the neighborhood center anchors this sustainable site. Its faAfASade was constructed with salvaged brick and recycled aluminum rood to reflect sunlight and keep the building cool.
It's not just the building that is green, but the LEED boundary of the site extends across the street into a native and adapted species butterfly garden.
Directly adjacent to the Neighborhood center, the butterfly garden highlights several key sustainable features through educational signs. Throughout the garden grounds, visitors are able to learn more about the life-cycle of butterflies, native and adapted species plants, watersheds, and storm water management techniques.
The center's landscaping plants withstand dry conditions, grow naturally, or have adapted to this area, and do not choke out or displace other native vegetation. Growing drought-tolerant plants reduces the time and money spent on irrigation, pesticides, herbicides, and maintenance. Perennial varieties are used around the center and in the butterfly garden.
"We are very excited about this small building's ability to promote environmental awareness throughout the Belvoir community and beyond," Boylan said.
A LEED-Platinum building on Fort Belvoir would be the first on a military base and would be the second in the state of Virginia.
For more info, you can also visit the website at www.greenbelvoir.com.
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