Amid the Trees,
a Model of Environmental Stewardship Rises
by Eric Johnson | photos courtesy Fairfax County Park Authority
Artist’s rendition of the completed center
A unique opportunity to explore, experience and learn about the Chantilly area’s intimate link to the great outdoors will soon open in a shady corner of a Fairfax County park.
The Sully Woodlands Stewardship Education Center at Ellanor C. Lawrence Park is scheduled to open in late fall. It’s a state-of-the-art facility that has been under construction since January 2022 and complements a county master plan for the Sully Woodlands in place since 2006.
Benjamin Boxer, the public affairs manager for the Fairfax County Park Authority, said the tree-friendly interpretive center will provide visitor services, educational programming for school children, and core facilities for public use. ster plan for the Sully Woodlands in place since 2006.
“Education and environmental stewardship have long been foundational principles emphasized in the planning and development” of the center, Boxer said.
Nestled in a grove of trees and incorporating sustainable building features, the center will provide what Fairfax County Park Authority Executive Director Jai Cole calls “a light footprint” on the beautiful Sully Woodlands.
“As an ecologist, I think it’s so important to have buildings that have a light footprint on the ground and to be teaching kids and adults about sustainability footprint and still
have a massive impact,” Cole said. “I just hope that everybody can come out and see this phenomenal facility when it’s done.”
The center will include a large multipurpose room, restrooms, and several educational spaces for exploring “the mechanical and sustainable function of the facility, as well as the natural resources and features,” Boxer said.
The building and surroundings—encompassing some 7,000 square feet —will include a new amphitheater and many interactive outdoor exhibits “for active and engaged learning,” he said. The project is scheduled to cost about $8.8 million, with funds coming from public and private sources.
The project is being developed by the Fairfax County Park Authority with the support of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, the Fairfax County Park Foundation, Ellanor C. Lawrence Park Friends, private and corporate donors and voterapproved park bonds.
The center is designed to meet the rigorous, sustainability standards of the Living Building Challenge, which is sponsored by the International Living Future Institute. Any structure that meets this challenge is “premised on the belief that providing a compelling vision for the future is a fundamental requirement for reconciling humanity’s relationship with the natural world,” according to the institute’s website.
The Sully Woodlands Stewardship Education Center is due to open this fall
Above: Construction began in January 2022.
Above: The center is taking shape at the Ellanor C. Lawrence Park
Fairfax County Park Authority Executive Director Jai Cole
Meeting the challenge is never easy, a fact underscored by the need for careful attention to detail during the ongoing construction of the center.
“Only a small handful of buildings have achieved this standard of development in which all aspects of a project – structure, design, systems, materials, and operations of the center itself – are used to teach the principles of stewardship for resources and healthy choices in use of water, energy, site use and building methods,” Boxer said.
Photovoltaics will produce 105 percent of the energy used by the building. The center also features passive cooling, radiant heating and wastewater treatment.
The surrounding landscape will consist of native plantings. Existing trees have been protected during the construction process, and the site will be fully restored before the doors open.
“From the use of reclaimed materials solar energy generation to rainwater collection and reuse and wastewater treatment,” Boxer said, “the building and its mechanical operations will present an incredible teaching platform for demonstrating technologies an processes that can reshape our individual relationship with the environment around us.”
near the border of Chantilly and Centreville,
is being built to serve as a gateway to the
Sully Woodlands, a region managed by the park authority that encompasses 4,400 acres and 43 parks with specific-use zones, such as community-serving recreation space and resource stewardship areas, designated in each park.