The Friend's Center

The 7,572 square-foot Friends Center is the first permitted strawbale building to be constructed in center city San Diego. This project was developed and designed as a showcase “green” building, a demonstration site for state-of-the-art environmentally sustainable building techniques, including strawbale construction, solar power, natural daylighting, passive solar design, rainwater capture, and other energy-efficient components. Landscaping includes low water native plans as well as an orchard of many edible trees. An iconic peace craine sculpture creates an monument to the entry courtyard.

The structure is hoping to receive a minimum of LEED “silver” certification by the US Green Building Council, and was used by the San Diego chapter of the USGBC as an early case-study of sustainable design and implementation and the LEED rating system.

The Center is a result of an unique collaboration among four peace orientated groups, The Friends of San Diego, The Peace Resource Center, The American Friends Service Committee, and The Church of the Brethren. Groundbreaking occurred in the summer of 2004 and many hours of volunteer labor led to the building opening in October 2011.