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Sustainability Spotlight November/December 2008 Making the Grade The number of green schools is increasing, and new designs are creating healthier learning environments By Jennifer Seward
Green has now become the unofficial school color of more than 1,000 K-12 buildings across the country. According to figures from the U.S. Green Building Council, new schools are registering for its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification at the rate of about one project per day, with more than 100 schools already certified and approximately 1,000 additional schools currently in the pipeline to receive certification. While these schools—located in all 50 states and the District of Columbia—are saving energy, water and, ultimately, taxpayers’ money; advocates say an even bigger benefit is improved health and a richer learning environment for students. “When you consider that 50 million young people spend eight hours a school day in a school building, we should do everything we can to make that environment work for them, not against them,” says Michelle Moore, USGBC senior vice president. “Parents, teachers and school-board officials understand better than anyone that children in green schools have fewer sick days and better test scores.” As of September, 10 states and the District of Columbia now require green school construction: Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio and Washington are leading the way, building schools designed with daylighting and views, high indoor-air quality, excellent acoustics and thermal comfort. Child’s Play
About 20% of America goes to school every day, according to the U.S. Dept. of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. Not surprisingly, USGBC believes the construction industry can make a tremendous impact on schools, teachers, students and staff by building green. Developed in 2000, the LEED rating system was designed primarily for office buildings, but a lot of other market sectors were using it to good effect, says Rachel Gutter, USGBC’s education sector manager. Gutter says the LEED for Schools rating system, launched in April 2007, came about because school facilities serving children have a unique set of needs. “Children are more susceptible to environmental toxins because they breathe in more air in proportion to their body weight than we do as adults,” Gutter notes. She says children also have a lesser ability to detoxify substances than adults because their systems are not as developed. “You can’t see mold growing,” Gutter says. “You would not see off-gassing, volatile organic compounds or [poor] acoustics, yet these things have a tremendous impact on a student’s ability to learn and a teacher’s ability to teach.” Gutter recalls a sixth grader in a disadvantaged Chicago neighborhood talking about his experience in his new green school. She quotes the boy as saying, “At my old school, I needed my inhaler three times a day; at my new school, I need it only once.” Bigger, Better, Greener
At the Barnard Environmental Studies Magnet School, one of several New Haven, Conn., public schools being constructed by AGC-member Gilbane Building Co., Providence, R.I., green features include the largest roof-mounted solar panel array on any public building in the state, with 196 solar panels producing 16% of the school’s energy. Two greenhouses with ample rooftop greenery help insulate the building. Student gardens and a pedestrian bridge across a highway afford children access to a nature center and West River Memorial Park. The K-8 school, designed by Roberta Washington Architects PC, New York City, and David Thompson Architects, New Haven, received a $43-million transformation through the city’s $1.5-billion school construction program. It is Connecticut’s first public school to achieve LEED Gold certification. Gilbane began providing management services for the 14-year, 48-school construction program in 1998. As part of this program, the city of New Haven initiated a comprehensive high-performance building program. It wanted to clean up the city’s air and provide a healthier environment for students, teachers and administrators as part of the schools’ Energy Star rating program.
New Haven is not alone in its quest for healthier learning environments. As school districts commit to more sustainable building practices, design and construction teams are being challenged to think bigger, better and greener. Lewis Palmer School District’s new $45-million Palmer Ridge High School in Monument, Colo., designed and constructed by Denver firms H+L Architecture and AGC-member Saunders Construction Inc., is one of the largest geothermal heat-pump projects in the state. A geothermal field consisting of 200 bore holes 400 ft deep and 20 ft apart feeds the school’s heating and cooling exchange system. The geothermal system minimizes the parts and pieces of a typical mechanical room, and Pete Jefferson, a principal with Denver engineering firm M.E. Group, says the system will pay for itself in seven to 10 years. Palmer Ridge is expected to operate as one of the most energy-efficient schools in the state, largely due to the geothermal system, he says.
Daylight harvesting and automated light dimmers in the Palmer Ridge classrooms reduce energy costs while providing children with a more comfortable learning environment. Two green-roof areas help avoid the extreme temperature swings on the roof surface and also serve as a teaching tool for students. Palmer Ridge is the first new high school that the district has built in decades. Going green “is a responsible approach, using modern-day and current teaching philosophies,” says Brian Cohen, senior project manager at Saunders Construction.
Classrooms feature open designs with LCD screens and laptop accessibility. Carpeting in the classrooms absorbs noise and is environmentally friendly, with high recycled content and low volatile organic compounds (VOCs). RetroPlate concrete, a highly polished concrete surface system, was chosen for larger common areas to reduce maintenance costs and avoid the use of chemicals. Bright Future Meanwhile, in the nation’s capital, an abandoned historic school building has been turned into a learning center with a special focus on architecture, construction and engineering arts. The Washington, D.C., office of AGC-member Turner Construction Co. completed the $63-million renovation of the Phelps Architecture, Construction and Engineering High School this fall. It is the first District of Columbia public school designed to receive a LEED Silver certification.
Green features include solar-water and solar-power components, geothermal features and wind turbines in the career- technology training bays. The school’s greenhouse features computer-controlled window shades and watering systems so students can see the latest in energy-efficiency and water-conservation practices. The school’s design allows students to view the various building components and systems. The ceiling pipes in parts of the school are exposed and color-coded as in typical commercial construction, allowing students to follow the paths of the wiring, plumbing lines and sprinkler systems.
“The [Lewis Palmer] school district wanted to build responsibly with a blend of environmental and cost-saving elements that offered a healthy learning environment for the students,” says Saunders’ Cohen. While the district decided against LEED certification because of the various costs involved, Cohen says the goal was to build “in the spirit of LEED” every step of the way. USGBC and many green-school advocates say green schools typically cost less than $3 per sq ft more to build than regular schools, an investment that is paid back within a few years of operation. Over the lifetime of the school, the savings keep adding up, USGBC’s Gutter says. For instance, if a green school saves $100,000 per year in operational costs, that’s roughly enough to hire two new teachers, buy 200 new computers or purchase 5,000 new textbooks.
At $116 per sq ft, the Northland Pines High School in Eagle River, Wis., was constructed for 38% below the four-state regional average for a typical high school built without LEED standards. Designed and built by AGC-member Hoffman LLC, Appleton, Wis., and completed in August 2006, the 253,000-sq-ft building was also the first public high school in the U.S. to be certified LEED Gold. The school’s sustainable features include daylight harvesting, water-reducing bathroom fixtures, climate-appropriate plants, two large detention basins that retain stormwater on-site, priority parking that encourages carpooling or bicycling, high indoor-air quality with low or no VOC products and local materials manufactured within 500 miles of the construction site.
Gutter says one of the byproducts of the green movement is the charrette process, and the Northland Pines project is a great example of how the architect, engineer and contractor can come together to integrate sustainability into the design. “When the architect is talking about bigger windows, the contractor is making adjustments to the heating and cooling system,” she says. Hoffman marketing director Scott Pigeon agrees. Because his firm is made up of architects and construction managers, professionals from each of the disciplines can work together with the owner from the beginning to study sustainable options and incorporate them where it makes sense—rather than “just throwing them in to get the LEED points,” he says. Gutter adds, “Green design has inspired this type of collaboration because you can’t get a green building without that approach.”
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