University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
This sustainable residential-life community embraces the three themes of the UVA Sustainability Plan—Engage, Steward, and Discover—and offers apartment-style living as a bridge to post-graduation life.
Bond House—named for former UVA professor and civil rights leader Julian Bond—anchors the southern end of a new “green street” at the University of Virginia, achieving a visual presence that echoes the historic Central Grounds. The project intentionally interlocks building and landscape in order to shaping community and creating a sustainable environment.
The six-story building includes two additional levels of below-grade parking and extensive site work. The first story is divided between student residential space and the new UVA Democracy Initiative, an interdisciplinary research and training enterprise. The remainder comprises four-bedroom apartments (304 beds total), communal lounge and gathering spaces, and six studio apartments for Resident Assistants.
The building incorporates masonry veneer walls, punched openings, and cast stone panels at the base—a material palette in keeping with the historic UVA campus. The landscape provides a variety of pleasant outdoor gathering and recreation spaces and supports UVA’s environmental goals, including rainwater quantity and quality management, biodiversity, and canopy coverage.
The building’s design demonstrates sustainability best practices—it provides comfort and enhances wellness through daylighting, views, and non-toxic materials, and it benchmarks performance against reputable third-party building certification programs. The building and systems are designed to meet Passive House PHIUS+ certification without affecting construction cost. In addition, the team followed Living Building Challenge standards for interior materials selection.
