Friends Center is a campus of 3 buildings in Center City Philadelphia owned and occupied by 3 Quaker organizations: the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM), and the Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting. It is located at 15th and Cherry Street. The site listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is also designated a Philadelphia historic site. The project includes the renovation of 2 of the 3 buildings: the historic Race Street Meeting House and a 4 story office structure containing the offices of AFSC and PYM.

Currently the Friends have embarked on a major renovation of Friends Center and the restoration of the historic Race Street Meeting house, built in 1856, that stands at the center of the campus. Long committed to environmental stewardship and the “right sharing” of resources, the Friends concluded that they would invest in green technologies that yield long-term energy savings and construct a project that will be a model of sustainable design.

Planning and Design Process With funding from the Kresge Foundation Friends Center Corporation entered into a planning process that included green building tours; goal setting; a 2-day green design charette; energy modeling; daylight modeling; and post-charette follow-up. Utilizing the energy model constructed for the office building, the design team tested the savings of 12 energy efficiency measures, both individually and in various combinations. Now complete, this analysis shows that the optimal combination of measures will save the Friends in excess of $150,000 in the first year of operation.

Two Overarching Goals
1. Become fossil fuel free and carbon neutral

• Conserve by reducing energy demand through improved thermal envelope, day-lighting, efficient lighting systems, reduced plug loads, and energy efficient equipment.
• 100% purchased wind generated electricity
• Photovoltaic local power generation
• Geothermal energy for heating and cooling

2. Cease to contribute to the degradation of Philadelphia’s watershed

• Detain storm water on-site in a vegetative roof, tree trenches, a rain garden and underground cisterns with combined capacity to store storm water from a rainfall of 1-3/4" in 24 hours
• Reduce consumption of potable water by treating waste water on-site in constructed wet-lands and Eco-machine and recycling it for use in flushing toilets and irrigation.