Today, sustainability is a core focus of many of our pursuits in urban planning, land use, agriculture, manufacturing, and certainly design. Join us at the award-winning LEAFHouse for our Sustainable Living Open House, a busy day of hands-on demonstrations showing ways to apply the latest thoughts on sustainability to our homes and landscapes.

LEAFHouse is the University of Maryland's 2007 award-winning Solar Decathlon entry, now owned by the Potomac Valley Architecture Foundation and serving as the chapter house for AIA Potomac Valley. All of this is part of the our newly established Sustainability Park and Academic Research Center (SPARC).  

In conjunction with the University of Maryland's Maryland Day 2018, we will have interactive exhibits and speakers to show how a rain barrel works, what a live roof looks like up close, how to grow food in small spaces, both inside and out.  Come touch a solar panel, help plant a wall garden, see how permeable paving in your driveway can capture rain water. We'll also have the results of our recently completed 10-year energy assessment of LEAFHouse.  Experience how the unique features of LEAFHouse's design are still cutting-edge and ground-breaking.  To add to all of this, members of the University of Maryland's 2017 Solar Decathlon team will explain how their design, reACT, won the top U.S. award in 2017. 

Open to the public and all ages! Come directly to LEAFHouse following these directions or hop on our LEAFHouse shuttle at the School of Architecture, which will make the loop every 15-20 minutes.