Studio Project: A Community Bank of the Future

Studio assignment for this semester is to design a Sustainable Bank of the Future on a car dealership lot in Chestnut Hill. It's a huge 20,000 SF building on Germantown Ave. Located in the heart of Chestnut Hill, it's a walkable neighborhood in northwest section of Philadelphia that is a destination for shopping, restaurants and family fun.

Sounds silly, but a bank of the future isn't all that different than current banking practices. However, it's about finding the right match of services and products that position it to be successful for years to come, all while operating under a triple bottom line philosophy.

Triple Bottom Line, also known as "people, planet, profit", captures an expanded spectrum of values and criteria for measuring success: economic, ecological and social. Organizations usually govern themselves within these principles and publish some form of corporate social responsibility report. (You'll notice these appearing on annual reports and company web sites. Understand that many companies jumping on the sustainability bandwagon publish these reports and they lack substantial meaning.)

This bank needs to have a community focus, strive to be carbon-neutral or greater, and profitable (hello, it's a bank!). With the given site I've been thinking of ways to re-introduce green space as well as bringing in the public. I'm leaning towards ripping up all of the asphalt and doing a farming co-op. Space for an adult education center can get citizens involved and excited about residential improvements and opportunities - thus being eligible for home-improvement and other business loans from our bank! Check out my cartoon site plan below.

Our current program:

• Sustainable bank (4,000 SF) in NE Corner of Building.
• Asphalt to green space and farming
• Cafe (2,000 SF) and farmer's market (3,000 SF) in the NW corner of building. 
• Sustainable Children's Playhouse (distract the little ones while you're involved in other on-site activities) (6,000 SF)
• Educational Center/Classroom and Working Shop (5,000 SF)

Current strategies we're going to try to implement:

• Rainwater Harvesting from the huge roof
• Daylighting opportunities through strategic window placements
• Photovoltaic arrays on the…
• White-roof (reflects solar heat gain and collects rainwater faster than green roofs)
• Natural ventilation

An 8-week project, we're just getting started so this is more of an introduction to the project, as well as an arena for discussion about possible direction.

Any ideas you'd like to see here?