https://vimeo.com/18394120]
This past September, the Germantown Friends Upper School welcomed an eco-friendly addition to its campus. The Sustainable Urban Science Center, located on Coulter Avenue, is exactly what its name suggests.
During the construction process, the school always kept its Quaker values in mind, including commitment to community and stewardship. It was constructed with mostly sustainable materials and is expected to not only house the school’s science classrooms, but also be a teaching aid as well.
“It was designed to meet our needs as a science facility but we felt it important that it also be a teaching tool,” explained Gen Nelson, head of the science department at the school.
The building, costing roughly $9.6 million, consists of many “green” features, from a roof garden to solar panels used to provide the building with power. There is no waste of electricity, with most of the lighting being motion sensitive. In other words, many rooms do not even have light switches. Simply walk in, and the room slowly brightens.
The center’s bathrooms do not even have paper towels.
“There’s an air dryer and it’s the only air dryer I’ve ever met that actually works,” said Nelson. “If you stick your hand under there it’s gonna sound like an airplane taking off but your hands will be dry in three seconds flat.”
The bathrooms are also equipped with dual flush toilets, which minimize water usage. The water used is even recycled, being slightly discolored because it is rain water that is collected from the center’s rain gardens.
The rain gardens are a part of the center’s storm water management system. They were specifically designed to collect rain from the surrounding parking lot, the science center’s roof, as well as water from the Hargroves Center’s roof, which formerly held the science classrooms. The gardens were planted to allow the rainwater to circulate and permeate slowly back into ground water, reducing the amount of water discharge into the sanitary sewer. All of the water collected goes into two, 5,000-gallon cisterns which sit in the center’s courtyard. This gray water the cisterns collect is then recycled back into the building to flush the center’s toilets.
“I love that it’s practice what you preach because we are taught to conserve water,” said Avery Stern, a 12th-grade student. “With the dual flush toilets, which are one of my favorite installments, it’s very fitting.”
Nelson explained that the school felt very strongly that the building not burden the city’s already over-taxed storm water management systems.
“It has three different storm water management systems so pretty much no storm water ever leaves this site.”
In fact, all of the water used is monitored on a dual, touch-screen dashboard, which is located in the center’s main lobby. This dashboard allows faculty and students to collect and store data from the building’s systems in real time. It includes the weather station, water usage and electric production and consumption. The center uses this information to assist the community because it helps conserve resources and also helps the students to become better stewards of the environment.
All of the building’s lab spaces, department spaces and conference rooms are composed of sustainable material. In fact, the center itself is made from 95 percent recycled steel.. Many of the walls and cabinets are made from sunflower wheat board, which is made from sunflower seeds.
Some ceilings in the center’s rooms are made from tectum, which is spun from an invasive species of aspen trees. However, many of the lab spaces have not been covered with ceilings, leaving the water lines and electrical lines exposed, allowing students to see how the building works.
The chemistry labs even have a periodic table on the floor. These were made leaving no waste, by laying a dark tile on top of a light tile, cutting it once and swapping out the letters.
“I wanted something that clearly said chemistry lab,” said Nelson. “So we thought a big, fat periodic table on the floor would do exactly that.”
The designing process of the science center took about a year and a half, plus a year for construction. SMP Architects went through a series of workshop discussions with the school and the community to figure out what they wanted the center to achieve. David Ade, one the architects of the center, said that the school’s committee wanted the building to actually look like a science building, so some research had to be done.
The center was originally supposed to be constructed along Germantown Avenue rather than Coulter Avenue. But, after the design was finalized, the architects felt that shifting the building to its current location was better for its layout.
“The design, especially the cisterns, really puts the sustainability image out there,” said Ade.
Whether this sustainable building will inspire others to build “green” as well is too soon to tell. It has, however, received very positive press. Ade can only hope that it inspires other schools to do the same.
light switches should be made from oxygen free copper so that they last longer~~*