Architect William McDonough speaks at the forum "Waging Peace: The New SIS Building, Ecological Sanity, and International Relations." Photo by Rachel Lincoln.

Transforming the country's power-hungry and aging building supply into a lean, green structural inventory has gotten too many designers down, says architect William McDonough, the green-building luminary known for his consideration of the full life cycle - what he calls "cradle to cradle" - of materials and buildings. Instead, he's decided to accentuate the positive.

"Everyone's trying to be less bad. This building is trying to be more good," McDonough said during a pre-Earth Day tour of his first project in D.C., the light-filled School of International Service at American University. McDonough said he selected the school because he was "enchanted" by its philosophy. "They talk about 'waging peace' - what we're about on a material level, they're about on a pedagogical level," he said.

Although the 70,000-square-foot, six-story building will - university officials hope - get a gold rating from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification system after it opens, designers said they did not approach the project simply with a checklist of green-design requirements in hand.

"The main issue for us was the issue of community," said McDonough, standing in the building's "grand atrium." Now scattered over eight university buildings, the school will have the glass-walled entry - a soaring, light-filled space outfitted in warm wood and cool terrazzo - as its heart.

From the atrium, students can see their peers relaxing in the student-run Davenport coffeehouse, which will benefit from one of the building's three solar hot-water heaters. They may also see the school's dean, Louis Goodman, in his nearby glass-walled office.

"Transparency was another main idea for the building," said Goodman. Even the design had more clarity than most, he said, noting that student input had an enormous impact on the final design.

Both central tenets - community and transparency - inform the staircase-cum-auditorium that connects the main floor to a lower level that will hold many of the school's lectures and events.

The steps will be simply hangout space much of the time, but if there's a speaker or event downstairs, loungers on the steps will be able to see that, explained McDonough. "Everyone will know, everyone gets to participate," he said, likening the central space to a European plaza in which an entire town may gather.

Everywhere in the building - from LED lighting in the garage to a rooftop wall that traps and warms air before it gets to the heating system - environmentally friendly elements are quietly at work. "Every time we had a decision to make, we made the green decision," said Goodman.

Sometimes, the green decision is the unexpected one. Designers expected to install a living green roof, explain Joseph Clapper, assistant dean for facilities and administration. But two reasons for a green roof - insulation and storm-water management  - were already being addressed via other means, and the third - the heat-island effect - was eliminated with a reflective white roof.

"It was a surprise, but...we didn't need it," Clapper said.

The American University building may be the newest  candidate for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification among the universities in Northwest D.C., but it isn't the first. This month, Georgetown University announced that its Rafik B. Hariri Building, which houses the McDonough School of Business, earned a silver rating, and George Washington University's South Hall became the first gold-rated campus building in the District.

The Foggy Bottom building, a residence hall that opened last fall, houses 474 seniors who "are really proud" to have the environmentally friendly showpiece, said Sophie Waskow, a coordinator in the university's  office of sustainability. The building includes sustainable bamboo paneling and a reflective white roof among its litany of features that qualified it for the gold rating.

This fall, a redeveloped Pelham residence hall on the school's Mount Vernon campus will hold 287 students and - officials hope - sport the university's second gold rating.

The Hariri Building is also a part of a broader pedagogy of sustainability, say Georgetown officials. "We teach our students about leadership and social responsibility, and the new Hariri Building shows that we practice what we teach," said George Daly, business school dean, in a release.

One student who frequents the new building, which features water savings and local materials, is Kristin Ng, a junior and president of student group Eco-Action.

"The university doing this really shows that they're committed to this cause and that they're willing to invest in it," said Ng.

This article originally appeared in the 4/22/10 edition of the Northwest Current.