BUILDING SCHOOLS FOR THE FUTURE
SCHOOL
in housing projects, but it was soon clear that a range of buildings, including offices and schools could benefit. One of the first buildings constructed was the Knowle West Media Centre, which provides opportunities for participation in media arts by young people living in one of the most disadvantaged areas of Bristol. Constructed using the ModCell® system, the new centre is a flagship building of which the Knowle West community is rightly proud. It will enable the budding creative community to explore and develop their talents freely - offering state of the art media studios, workspace and exhibition spaces for the music, art and film produced on site – all the while meeting the PassivHaus specification. The involvement of local 11 to 16-
year-olds formed the design of the building from start to finish, having even been involved in the construction process assembling one of the ModCell® prefabricated straw bale cladding panels as part of the ‘sponsor a panel scheme’. Teams from throughout the South West got involved by sponsoring individual ModCell® panels. “The participation of young people in the Knowle West project made us seriously start thinking about the schools market,” said Craig While, CEO, ModCell. “Children are often much more environmentally-aware than adults and the vigour with which they embraced this
How a UK trade mission to San Francisco has helped create a blueprint for the renewable schools of the future
project made us realise that schools were a fantastic opportunity for us.” ModCell already has a number of partnerships with schools across the UK to retrofit the ModCell® system into buildings and now plans to incorporate PassivEnergy into those too.
“BSF provides an enormous market opportunity for ModCell and PassivSystems and the recent £600m Somerset County Council selection of its preferred bidder for its schools shows just how big,” explained Craig White, CEO, ModCell. “The combination of our two companies’ technologies makes for an extremely compelling proposition, enabling schools to reduce their carbon emissions drastically.”
The first school to benefit from
PassivEnergy will be a primary school in Cheshire, which hopes to have the system installed and operational in time for the start of the 2010/11 school year. Planning is already under way at the same school for an early years community centre to be built on site using the ModCell® system, the very first stand alone school building to be constructed using that system in the UK.
“Adding PassivEnergy to the ModCell® Renewable Schools’ super efficient building system will make these first schools a blueprint for any further schools intent on reducing wasted energy and making budgets go further,” said Colin
Calder, CEO of PassivSystems. “It is one of those ideas that simply just makes sense. Using natural resources like the ModCell® system to construct a school is the ultimate in low carbon construction, whilst of course a school’s energy needs will vary on an hourly basis and from classroom to classroom. PassivEnergy will learn and manage those requirements to significantly reduce energy use.” Partnerships such as this one between ModCell and PassivSystems are testament to the creativity and business acumen that is evident in the UK clean technology sector right now. A strong proposition combined with a genuine market opportunity will see the UK’s schools transformed over the coming years and a significant reduction made in the UK’s overall carbon emissions.
www.passivsystems.com www.modcell.co.uk
Ultra Floor Level IT super30 plays an essential role in fast track school flooring installation
straightforward project. However, when an extremely short timescale is provided the project’s difficulty is increased, and solutions are needed to complete efficiently.
B
The project at Christ Church School was scheduled during the 2009 Christmas holidays and only a single day was available to carry out the work. The classroom’s original concrete substrate required sub-floor preparation before any floor covering could be laid and Jon Hughes, one of CWC Flooring’s Contracts Managers was advised to use Ultra Floor Level IT super30.
eing commissioned to complete a flooring installation of a classroom, in theory is a relatively
Ultra Floor’s rapid setting concrete leveller, Level IT super30 is capable of accepting foot traffic after just 30 minutes and floor coverings after only 3 hours. Jon’s team applied Level IT super30 by trowel and at a depth of 3mm to level and prepare the uneven substrate. He comments that Level IT super30 “really helped with the time restrictions in place and it was an ideal material providing fantastic results.” For more information on Ultra Floor’s range of levelling & smoothing
ModCell panel having straw inserted
compounds, repair mortars, primers and damp proof membranes, please visit www.ultra-floor.co.uk or call
01827 871871.
SUSTAINABLE FM | APRIL 2010
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