By Jeff Feldman

Small Planet

In a quiet hollow at the foot of South Mountain, young children explore, discover, learn, and play among fields where crops once grew. This is the Lucy School, a 17-acre farm turned arts-integrated education center. Arriving at the school, you are greeted by vistas of open fields, a large pond fed by a flowing waterfall, a nice-sized garden patch, small clusters of woods, and a prominent red barn. Some schools just have a magical energy about them and this is one such special place. Lucy, from luce, Italian for light, quite simply shines with the spirit of child-centered learning.

And the light that is the Lucy School glows quite a bit greener these days. At the urging of parents, Lucy recently reached beyond its original pre-school scope to include a curriculum for Kindergarten to Second Grade. Needing additional space to accommodate this expansion, the school began construction of a new classroom building. Seeking to create an innovative learning environment, and with both human and planetary health in mind, Lucy decided to go green with this new building, designing and constructing it in accordance with the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Program. “There was no other choice,” says Dr. Victoria Brown, co-founder and director of the school. “Tying in to the environment is just what we do here.” The two-story facility, complete with solar power, living roof, geothermal heating and cooling, LED lighting, and a host of other green features is beautiful, functional, and clearly Earth-friendly.

Dr. Christofer Zachariadis, the other co-founder of the school who served as construction supervisor for the project, shared that he and his building committee of school staff and parents knew little about green design or green building materials when they first started down this path. Green building experience was scarce among local builders and subcontractors in the area as well. The school partnered with George Harne of HarneBowen Architects out of Myersville, Md., for the design work, and contracted with Scott Kelly of Re:Vision Architects of Philadelphia for guidance on LEED’s green performance standards. It was late autumn 2007 when they broke ground on the project. With a September 2008 start of the new school year as a completion target, the plans and implementation had to unfold quickly.

Lucy’s green classroom building is fronted by a covered entry and walkway, whose post-and-beam frame is made from timbers salvaged from an old warehouse in North Carolina. Similar salvaged materials were used throughout. The building interior is aglow with natural light from large, high-efficiency windows and solatube skylights. Indoor air quality was a primary consideration in selecting materials used in the building. To minimize “off-gassing” of volatile organic compounds (VOC’s), wheatboard and bamboo were selected for the cabinetry, cellulose from recycled paper and a recycled denim product insulate the walls, and mineral-based paints add color to the interior. Floors are cork, bamboo, and concrete made with 50 percent slag or fly ash.

Nicole Aliev, whose two children attend the Lucy School, describes how her kids were made aware of why the building was so special and were included in the story of its construction. Progress reports came home weekly, and Aliev witnessed a growing sense of pride and ownership in her children. “As a parent, I love how the construction became a learning experience, one that taught the kids to feel responsible for their environment,” she says.

Nature works in cycles, and the systemic design mimics this. Rainwater collected in cisterns is cycled back to the dual-flush toilets. Graywater from sinks and water fountains cycles into irrigation for plants. Stormwater is filtered through rain gardens before cycling back into the groundwater system. As the children live and learn with these systems every day, their commonsense wisdom cycles forward. Dr. Brown shares one student’s asking why these green approaches to building are not more common. “Why doesn’t everyone use rainwater to flush toilets?” the student asks. Why indeed.

Visit the Lucy School online at www.lucyschool.com. For more information on the U.S. Green Building Council and LEED, visit www.usgbc.org.

Jeff Feldman runs GreenPath Consulting, a green building consulting firm. Jeff and his wife, Kristin Alexander, live in a strawbale home in Berkeley County. You can reach Jeff at jfeld33@aol.com.