Project Type: LEED

The Lucy School
Middletown, MD
Architect: MSB Architects

The Lucy School provides preschool and primary level education and is situated on a 17-acre farm in Middletown, Maryland. A new building houses the primary education programs at the school. The US Green Building Council has certified this building as a LEED for Schools Platinum building, the first such designation for a school in the State of Maryland. LEED for Schools takes into account air quality, daylighting, occupant health, and acoustics. Metropolitan Acoustics provided the consulting work to achieve the LEED prerequisites and additional credits for acoustics. If you are not aware, LEED for Schools requires prerequisites for certain aspects of acoustical design including reverberation time and background sound levels as well as credits for going above and beyond the prerequisites including partition design. This is to ensure the students have an acoustical environment that enhances learning.

In order to achieve the Platinum certification, the school met high performance standards in a broad range of areas. A solar array generates more than 40% of electricity for the building with the balance being wind-generated. Captured rainwater is used for dual-flush toilets. Temperature and CO2 sensors maintain optimal conditions in classrooms. About 84% of the wood used in the construction of the building was reused, recycled, or FSC-certified. Rapidly renewable materials, such as cork, bamboo and wheat board, have been used throughout, and recycled material (newspaper, denim and cotton) were used for thermal and acoustical insulation. All concrete contains about 50% recycled waste products. More than 86% of construction waste was diverted from the landfill through recycling and reuse. The architect for the project was MSB Architects (formerly HarneBowen) and the LEED Consultant was Re:Vision Architecture.