The £28m Leigh Academy, > James Warne, BDP’s environmental engineering around open-plan resource and teaching areas, set as
above and bottom, is
director, says not quite yet – but they’re working on it. day-lit triple-height winter gardens, which facilitate the
designed as a “creative
“The results have very positive and negative things to natural ventilation of the building.
crescent” around four
tell us and have taken a lot of time to get to the bottom
separate colleges
of. In terms of energy, the good news is the building Orientation
services are performing well,” he says. The crescent-shaped academy is south-facing and
BDP is currently conducting a post-occupancy topped by a curved roof that reaches ground level.
evaluation (POE) of the academy, as well as an energy Warne says the shape “responds” to the microclimate,
assessment that involves analysing energy bills and and offsets any turbulence from prevailing winds.
It would be too
meter readings. Most of the teaching spaces face north, thus
Overall, Warne says, early indications of these reducing glare, while the southern exposed elevation
easy to blame
studies point to a well-performing building “with some and winter gardens capture low-angle sun in the
the occupants,
tweaks required”. BDP is also involved with the Usable winter for reclaiming the heat to warm classrooms,
the operation of
Buildings Trust to help improve the school’s energy while blocking out high-angle sun. The orientation
performance further. also shields the school courtyard from road noise and
the building and
Warne describes the £28m academy as a “creative enables children to breathe the fresh air drawn up
the increased
crescent” that is designed around the four separate through the earth tubes.
energy loads,
colleges of Brunel, Chaucer, Darwin and Da Vinci. The sealed façade also reduces traffic noise and led
Each college is like a school within a school, with to the installation of mechanical ventilation, which
and walk away.
links along an internal street. The colleges are paired uses reclaimed air from the earth tubes to provide
28 CIBSE Journal September 2009
www.cibsejournal.com
CIBSEsep09 pp26-30 leigh acadamy.indd 28 21/8/09 14:21:18
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