University of Virginia
IN-49: Innovation C

The Green Street: The Green Street was completed in 2020 and has been highly successful in envisioning the future redevelopment of a strategic 10-acre parcel at the junction of three important but distinct areas of the UVA campus: the Jeffersonian-era Academical Village with its central Lawn, the South Lawn Complex, and the Health System. The Green Street Plan organizes the building program around a linear open space. Although the site is similar in proportion to the historic Lawn, the landscape design does not seek to replicate UVA’s iconic historic core. Instead it responds to the topography and hydrology of the site by centering the development on a bioremediation corridor, which serves as both a visual amenity and a “working landscape,” designed to manage the stormwater for the district and seasonal fluctuations in water flow. This arrangement creates a generous interior civic space with a wide pedestrian promenade overlooking the water feature, in turn creating maximum high-value program frontage along the parcel’s entire interior. By means of its broad public realm and park–green space connections to adjacent areas of the Grounds, the Green Street opens itself to the surrounding University community.In planning for this new district, the University engaged stakeholders to generate concepts and ideas for a future neighborhood, slated to provide 500,000–600,000 gross square feet of built space. The Green Street illuminates the potential of this new mixed-use neighborhood in a way that consolidates University support around a clear, cohesive idea for the future and continues to enhance the architectural and landscape heritage of the University.

Green Building Standards: The University of Virginia Green Building Standards outline UVA’s minimum expectations for aligning University-wide sustainability goals with building design, construction, and maintenance. The Standards include a comprehensive package of prescriptive requirements, an implementation process to support projects in meeting the Standards in a cost-effective manner, and for capital projects, an enhanced process to embed sustainability into the decision-making process. The Standards propose additional requirements to align projects with meeting UVA’s sustainability goals beyond what LEED certification can accomplish or for projects for which LEED certification is not required. Each specification has one or more of the following goals: reduce environmental impact, provide anticipated reduced life cycle costs, and promote healthier and safer buildings.