Merrill Environmental Center: the Greenest Building Ever?
by Bridgette Meinhold
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Headquarters located outside of Annapolis, MD is considered by many to be one of the greenest buildings ever built. Completed back in 2000, the Merrill Environmental Center was the first building to achieve LEED Platinum under USGBC's version 1.0 rating system. Boasting heaps of green building strategies and eco-friendly materials, the building backs up its eco credentials by completing building commissioning and building performance studies to ensure it is operating according to its design standards. The center uses almost 60% less energy and 90% less water than a typical office building built around that same time.
Rainwater is collected from the Merrill Environmental Center’s roofs and is stored in three large exposed cisterns that supply about 84% of the office’s water needs. A 2 kW solar system on the roof supplies solar energy, while a geothermal heat pump provides energy to efficiently heat and cool the office. Solar passive design, natural ventilation, daylighting, tight insulation and low-e windows also play a big role in the energy-efficient design. The CBF headquarters use 59% less energy than other office buildings this size, which was determined during a year long testing and monitoring phase after the building was commissioned in 2001.
Environmentally-friendly materials were used throughout the building, including recycled-content materials like galvanized steel siding and roofing and reclaimed concrete, acoustic ceiling tiles, interior fabrics, and rubber flooring. The timber post and beam construction utilizes engineered scrap and new-growth FSC-certified wood and SIP panels for the roof and wall enclosures. Additionally, interior finishes included bamboo and cork flooring and reclaimed woodpaneling from pickle barrels. Many of the materials were sourced locally and there were no VOC finishes or materials used at all.
When the building was finished back in 2000, it was a shining example of what green building could be — and even today the center is still leading the way in green building strategies and performance . Employees are well accustomed to the composting toilets, the automatic ventilation controls, and their creative office layout. One of the reasons the center is so highly esteemed is due to its dedication after construction to building commissioning to ensure all the systems were operating up to their designed specs — in the ensuing year, the organization worked with NREL to monitor the buildings’ performance. The center continues to compare its performance against its operating benchmark to this day.
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