As SDC settled into being a newly formed sustainability consulting firm, greening k-12 schools became an emerging industry focus.  Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in Maryland led the way by launching its own Green Schools Focus program!  Over two full days in July 2003, MCPS held its first eco-charrette to establish its priorities, emphasizing development of the environmental program for its first pilot green school, Great Seneca Creek Elementary.  MCPS engaged SDC to co-facilitate this charrette, leading a break-out group around the role of healthy and sustainable materials.  The work performed over these two days set the stage for SDC to provide MCPS green specifications and design guidelines, LEED and Green Globes project certifications, contractor training, and operations and maintenance plans over the course of many years – through the present day!  See this MCPS-developed presentation capturing the first few years of their Green Schools Focus.

For a brief period in the firm’s history, SDC was based in Annapolis – Maryland’s capital city – and became active with the then Maryland Green Building Network, an indirect predecessor of USGBC Maryland.  During this year, SDC began advisory work on what would become its first LEED Platinum project: Highland Beach Town Hall.  Highland Beach is a historically African American waterfront community that sits in the shadow of Annapolis itself and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Phillip Merrill center – the world’s first LEED Platinum building! That summer, SDC joined a consulting group that Mayor Bill Sanders referred to as his ‘Dream Team’.  The new 2,100 sf building replaced a smaller existing building, of which the historic front façade and a portion of the foundation were retained. Highland Beach Town Hall incorporated rainwater harvesting, bioretention, vegetated and solar roof components, a super-efficient building envelope using bio-based insulation, a ground-source heating and cooling system, and real-time monitoring of energy production and use.  For more information on this signature project to which SDC contributed, please see here.

As the green building industry kept moving forward, so did SDC – within a matter of months, the super-small business set up a DC-area regional office, while relocating its main office to Richmond, Virginia!  During this year of significant transition, SDC boasted three employees, other part-time staff, and an intern in each location. Functioning very much as one firm, the two-office geographic spread allowed SDC to effectively cover Maryland, DC, and Virginia project locations with one coordinated, professional team.  Want to reach someone in either of our offices?  Find us here.

Eastern Village Cohousing in Silver Spring, Maryland was SDC’s first start-to-finish consulting project.  Designed by EDG Architects and developed by Eco-Housing Corporation with Poretsky Builders, this adaptive reuse of an existing, U-shaped, concrete-framed office building challenged the status quo for multi-unit residential construction on several sustainability fronts.  The developers involved future residents in the design of the project, adding green features including a front façade with sun-shading, a vegetated roof to control stormwater, provide thermal protection and add some much-needed green space to the roof, an energy-efficient, ground-source heating and cooling system, and flooring materials made from rapidly renewable materials.  Having recently attained LEED Silver-level certification – making it the first-ever LEED-certified cohousing building – it then won the 2006 Green Roof Award of Excellence for the Extensive Residential category: “Established in 2003 by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, the Green Roof Awards of Excellence recognize leadership in integrated design and implementation of green roof projects.” For more information on Eastern Village Cohousing, its green roof, and some of its awards, please see:

Eastern Village Cohousing  

2006 Green Roof Awards of Excellence

Greenroofs – Eastern Village Cohousing

NAHB 2005 National Green Building Awards

Having placed a strong foothold in Central Virginia, SDC began making its presence known as a Richmond-headquartered hub of regional green building expertise.  The James River Green Building Council, a direct predecessor of USGBC Virginia, recognized SDC’s impact by awarding the firm its Green Building Leadership Award, Private Sector Category! SDC was recognized for its “many contributions to greening the built environment both in Virginia and nationally”.  SDC then moved into and greening downtown office space on the first floor of an existing, historic, industrial building formerly serving as a traditional buggy manufacturing and repair shop.  Known as The Buggy Factory, this unique, adaptive reuse project example has been SDC’s main office location ever since.  SDC provided its own interior fitout boasting cabinetry and casework made from rapidly renewable materials, repurposed wood furniture components, recycled-content carpeting and panel fabrics, energy-efficient lighting fixtures, water-efficient plumbing fixtures, and low-emitting finishes, among many more strategies a green building demonstration of the day.

SDC’s first higher educational project was the Universities at Shady Grove (USG) Clifford and Camille Kendall Academic Center in Rockville, Maryland, designed by CannonDesign.  SDC’s LEED consulting services, delivered initially with Scurfield Architects, brought this exciting project to its LEED Gold-level certification finish line! Known as ‘the Center’, the 195,000 sf multi-purpose building now accommodates enhanced classrooms, computer classrooms, open class laboratories as well as student services and support spaces. Also included are a bookstore, lounge, a central computer control center, and telecommunications center for the entire Shady Grove campus.  This green building exemplified such strategies as high-performance glazing for improved daylighting and energy-efficiency, outdoor and indoor water-efficiency, recycled-content and rapidly renewable building materials, and construction waste recycling. The Center also includes a comprehensive user education program, allowing students to monitor the installed systems and provide instruction on the green roof and native landscape features.  For more information on campus sustainability at USG, please see here.

SDC deepened its expertise in green building certifications and LEED specifically, delivering both the first and second LEED Platinum-level certified projects to Virginia!  First came the VCU Walter L. Rice Educational Center – the flagship building at the Rice Rivers Center in Charles City County, VCU’s field station for environmental research, teaching, and public service. Designed by Train Architects, the 4,889 sf Education Center site showcases innovative stormwater technologies such as rain gardens, swales, and stormwater re-use. Also featured are a ground source heat pump system, radiant flooring, operable windows, and photovoltaic panels to provide electricity to the building. Shortly thereafter, Ft. Belvoir’s Fairfax Village Neighborhood Center, part of a 13-acre master planned military housing development, attained LEED Platinum certification as well!  Designed by Torti Gallas + Partners, the 3,770 sf neighborhood center provides its community offices, a reception desk, a great room for social functions, conference room, kitchen, restrooms, foyer, maintenance shed, patio/courtyard, playground, and parking.  Its site preserves double the development footprint with vegetated open space and hosts an educational butterfly garden as well as rain gardens. It also features pervious concrete, while impervious paving is shaded. The building achieved exemplary energy performance with 59.4% use reduction and 22.6% on-site renewable energy generation.  We have very fond memories of working with all team members for these small but mighty super-green buildings!

YEAR 8, 2009-2010: For the first time, USGBC National Capital Region (NCR) Chapter recognized SDC as Firm of the Year!  In the 2010 Awards for Excellence featured at its annual Midsummer Night’s Green event, NCR Chapter honored SDC as Designer/Consulting Firm of the Year “for their work in developing USGBC and AIA education, and for their extensive internal green policies and advanced employee professional development.” SDC’s entire Washington, DC office attended the event to accept the award together!   Within that same program, four of SDC’s DC-area projects won awards as well.  Over the years, the firm has supported NCR Chapter with Board member, committee, and volunteer participation, along with annual sponsorships, and has received an additional firm leadership award and numerous project awards.  A Midsummer Night’s Green 2022 is upcoming in two weeks and SDC will be there with bells on once again!

SDC introduced its first-generation daylight modeling services, an example of which is pictured here. Using a combination of Autodesk Ecotect and LBNL Radiance, SDC performed a false color daylight analysis to understand the potential of discomfort glare in the atrium of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore New Engineering, Aviation, Computer Sciences and Mathematical Sciences Building, Princess Anne, Maryland, designed by the Hord Coplan Macht / Freelon Joint Venture. SDC’s daylight modeling has since evolved to incorporate additional analyses of natural and electric lighting quality and quantity using LightStanza software, further expanding this among other building science services!

As the U.S. real estate market struggled to recover from the impacts of its most recent recession, SDC leveraged renewed interest in existing building performance to deliver two Platinum-level LEED for Existing Buildings Operations and Maintenance (O+M) project certifications.  First came the Blair Towns in Silver Spring, Maryland, developed by the Tower Companies.  SDC had originally helped establish as the first LEED for New Construction and Major Renovations (NC) certified apartment community anywhere.  The renovation of this 78-unit structure focus on enhanced sustainability measures, both in its upgrades and in its operational programs within the context of greening the overall Blair Park campus, for which SDC also delivered LEED O+M Gold-level certification.  Meanwhile, SDC led the advanced sustainable certification process for Two Potomac Yard in Arlington, Virginia, the 325,000 sf multi-tenant office building housing several national offices of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  SDC had also previously led the LEED-NC Gold-level certification processes for both One and Two Potomac Yard, as well as the LEED Gold-level O+M certification for One Potomac Yard.  Both signature projects illustrate SDC’s capabilities in long-term, complex, multi-faceted project life-cycles – from planning, design, and construction all the way through post-occupancy and ongoing operations!