COMPONENTS AT WORK
AIA Potomac Valley Turns a New, Solar LEAF
AIA component acquires University of Maryland Solar Decathlon LEAFHouse for new chapter house and visitor and education center

by Russell Boniface
Associate Editor

How do you . . . extend the life of a popular demonstration project?

Summary: The AIA Potomac Valley chapter has acquired the University of Maryland LEAFHouse, which captured second place in last month’s Solar Decathlon in Washington, D.C. LEAFHouse will become the new AIA Potomac Valley chapter house and Potomac Valley Green Design Information Center and serve as home to the chapter’s Potomac Valley Architectural Foundation. LEAFHouse will reside at AIA Potomac Valley’s College Park, Md., site, situated on the University of Maryland campus. LEAFHouse is going to be the first green AIA component office in the country.

The University of Maryland’s LEAFHouse is a metaphor for the leaf as nature’s solar collector. Exposed steel supports at its ceiling ridge "branch out" from a wooden spine, as if veins within a leaf, while ceiling glass forms a natural skylight. Its design incorporates glass throughout, with louvers to shade the interior during summer. Large sliding glass doors open up the living room to a deck. LEAFHouse is also an acronym for “Leading Everyone to an Abundant Future,” which represents the home’s many sustainable features. AIA Potomac Valley is currently raising funds to pay for and move the LEAFHouse to replace its current campus building.

“It’s an architecturally stunning building,” says Lloyd N. Unsell Jr., Hon. AIA, executive director, AIA Potomac Valley Chapter. “When I saw LEAFHouse under construction, I said, ‘we have to have this.’ It’s going to be a showplace for green architecture for our chapter and a teaching vehicle.” The University of Maryland solar team recently arrived at the chapter to drop off the decking, railing, and accessibility ramp of LEAFHouse, with the main house and foundation still to come. Unsell is hoping LEAFHouse will be in place January 1, 2008.

LEAFHouse as chapter and foundation home, teaching tool
“We will use it as our new chapter house and foundation house, and it’s also going to become the Potomac Valley Green Design Information Center,” says Unsell. “We’re going to have lots of information inside about the green technologies built into it. We’re going to encourage middle school and elementary teachers to bring field trips here to see LEAFHouse and teach about green technologies and the changing climate, and also to visit the University of Maryland School of Architecture to hear about how to have a career in architecture. It’s a golden opportunity to continue our bridge with the university.”

LEAFHouse recently received a design award by the chapter for advancing the science of architecture. Unsell notes that the appeal of LEAFHouse is its solar and sustainable features, workmanship, homey feel, and leaf-like skylight design. “Calling it the LEAFHouse was the students’ way of saying it is an efficient solar collector, using solar energy day in and day out.”

He’s impressed with the home’s sustainable features. “A green wall filters rainwater off the roof and feeds it into a holding cistern so you can use the water for washing cars or watering plants. There’s a gray water recycling system so water that’s run down the bathroom sink and kitchen sink can be recycled to flush the toilet. It has a second waterfall—unique in the Solar Decathlon—that takes humidity out of the air to take the load off of the air conditioning. There’s a very quiet radiant solar heating system under the floor, solar panels that generate 7.1 kilowatts of energy, energy-saving light bulbs and energy-saving appliances, and a two-way electric meter that will feed energy to the grid when the sun is out, and draw power from the grid at night, if it’s needed.”

Financing and assembling LEAFHouse
AIA Potomac Valley will pay $220,000 for LEAFHouse, which cost about $549,000 to build. The chapter has secured a $100,000 loan and needs an additional $50,000 to purchase the home. “We’re wiping out reserves I’ve spent 15 years accumulating for the chapter, but its transferring money from one pocket to the other, and the other pocket is a half a million dollar asset. I’ve got calls out to the USGBC, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and EPA for grant money. Our chapter president came forward with a $5,000 donation and is asking other firm principals to match it, and we’re asking chapter members to donate. We’re still going to buy it, even if we go greater in debt than we plan, because we think the investment is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” Unsell is also planning to approach IKEA to donate office furniture.

Who will put LEAFHouse together? “We might invite construction students from Montgomery College, have a Habitat for Chapter party, or involve the Maryland students who have taken it apart and put it together twice already.”

Take a leaf out of the AIA Potomac Valley book
Unsell recommends AIA chapters look into adapting solar homes from the Solar Decathlon. “In fact, I mentioned it at CACE [the Council of Architectural Component Executives] last August. I told them they should check with schools to find out their plans for their solar homes, discuss a partnership, find land, and then move chapter staff into the home. It’s a golden opportunity to build a bridge between our profession and a school while promoting green architecture.”