DC Water’s Grand Opening

OvS Principal and CEO Lisa Delplace and Marketing and Communications Director Justin Maglione attended the ribbon-cutting and reception of the new DC Water Headquarters yesterday afternoon. OvS envisioned and realized a full landscape program for the new facility, which has been named DC’s first LEED-Platinum Class-A building.

OvS’ design demonstrates the hydrologic cycle of storm events – from rainfall, to collection, to treatment, to re-use. Runnels on the surface of the facility’s paving channel stormwater to bioretention swales, planted areas that are designed to remove pollutants and silt from surface runoff. Water that does not infiltrate the plantings is held in an underground cistern and used for plant irrigation and to flush the building’s toilets. Plantings around the facility and adjacent to the Anacostia River meld with the fluid lines of the building and reinforce the notion of the Anacostia Greenway.

On hand to give remarks were Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, DC Council Members Mary Cheh (Ward 3) and Charles Allen (Ward 6), and Director of the Department of Energy and Environment Tommy Wells.

SmithGroup’s Sven Shockey, VP and Design Director, spoke briefly about the building’s planning, design, and state-of-the art sustainability, which contributes to it’s LEED status.