Lubber Run Community Center

Project highlights: Lubber Run Community Center

• Architect: VMDO Architects
• Owner: Arlington County Parks and Recreation
• Location: Arlington, Va.

In Arlington, Virginia, this new community center replaces an aged facility in Lubber Run Park, a natural resource that is precious to urban Arlington County. Connecting to nature and preserving the open space were the project’s drivers, shaping a 50,000-square-foot facility that offers a wealth of programming for all ages.

The team’s overarching design vision was achieved through a sculptural landscape plinth that is draped over a series of interior spaces, fully integrating the building into the landscape. To that end, all of the center’s parking and some of its interior programming were located underground to broaden the number of outdoor amenities at the ground level. Those include a playground, pickleball and basketball courts, and improvements to circulation that support access to all modes of transportation.

The center’s primary architectural elements also take their cues from the surrounding environment, namely a robust concrete base that bolsters the treehouse-like timber structure above. Inside, multipurpose rooms, a fitness center, gymnasium, meeting rooms, a kitchen, and offices for the county’s Parks and Recreation Department synthesize with the overall site strategy.

The team carefully coordinated the spatial organization to work in concert with the center’s sloping recreation landscape, through which it achieves dynamic connections to the outdoors. Beyond preserving the surrounding environment, the center helps increase access to nature within and around the site. Its main spaces offer views of Lubber Run Park’s woodland and the site’s constructed natural landscapes, such as a rain garden courtyard to the west.

Together, the building and landscape celebrate the movement of water across the site. The center’s butterfly roof form channels rainwater to an underground cistern where it’s used to irrigate the sizable green roof that caps the underground parking area. A series of bio-filtration basins serve as features throughout the main outdoor public spaces, cleansing runoff from the center’s paved and impervious surfaces before it enters Lubber Run.

In support of Arlington’s commitment to sustainability, the center was envisioned as a zero-energy facility. Its layout, massing, and systems design were oriented around that goal, and the team also minimized on-site solar array requirements by first optimizing the building’s energy performance. On-site renewable generation, including geothermal heat pump systems for heating and cooling and dedicated outdoor air systems with heat recovery, supply 100% of the center’s energy needs.

Completed on schedule despite the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lubber Run Community Center solves a uniquely urban problem: preserving access to open space in the wake of unceasing development. Fully integrated into the environment, the project is both a building and a park, a work of architecture truly rooted in its sense of place.