BUILDING SCHOOLS FOR THE FUTURE
BOND BRYAN ARCHITECTS’ ‘M VERSATILE LEARNING ENVIRO IS TEXTBOOK LESSON IN SUSTAINABILITY ON A LIMITED
The brand new Joseph Rowntree School in York, designed by Sheffield-based Bond Bryan Architects, has been completed and handed over to more than 1200 students and 150 staff. Incorporating a raft of sustainability techniques and materials, the school has already been voted the UK’s most versatile learning environment in the recent Partnership for Schools Awards.
D limited funds. The school also attracted £500,000 of
Project Faraday funding. The DCSF’s Project Faraday aimed to develop exemplar designs to inform and inspire those renewing or refurbishing school science facilities, particularly those involved in major capital programmes such as BSF and Academies.
As the school sits in the countryside on the outskirts of York there may appear to be less pressure for it to be at the very leading edge of sustainability, but it employs many techniques to reduce its carbon footprint and to fit comfortably in its rural setting.
Bond Bryan is seen as a leading architectural practice in terms of sustainability-focused design solutions and the appropriate use of energy and natural
esigned and built to a budget of £28 million, the school is a textbook example of how best to achieve effective sustainability within
resources was, from the outset of the project, one the key goals of the team. Working closely with its client – support services and construction company Carillion – and with engineers Buro Happold, Bond Bryan targeted a solution that under detailed analysis meets the following carbon emissions benchmark performance targets: • Achieves BREEAM Very Good standard.
• Improves upon part L of the current Building Regulations.
• Provides part of the Total Building Energy Requirement from renewable or low emission energy sources.
Initially envisaged by the City of York planners as a two-storey building, the team argued for the school to have greater height to increase its impact, while sitting well within the rural context. The resulting 12,000m² building has two three-storey and four two-storey teaching clusters arranged around a central
internal street linking all of the learning spaces. Project architect Gonzalo Carmona does not see the school as cutting edge, but is proud that the sustainable features he and colleagues designed in within the capital budget will deliver meaningful long-term benefits to the school and the environment. “We have delivered a really
sustainable building without pushing the boat out,” says Carmona. “The design has delivered the ‘wow’ factor and underpinning that is a simple use of the right materials and the right techniques. “The learning clusters are represented as pavilions using a simple palette of robust materials to complement the locality. The mature trees in the vicinity are enhanced through the extended learning landscape that wraps around and between them.”
The facilities include a biomass boiler using locally sourced fuel pellets, rainwater harvesting and a BMS (Building Management System) that achieves highly accurate conservation of light, heat and energy.
At a concept level the first strategic approach to energy efficiency was to decrease the building’s energy consumption. This included a number of specific design features: • Insulation – A high level of insulation was specified to the external envelope in excess of the current building regulations to significantly reduce fabric loss.
• Air Tightness – Air leakage can be a major contributor to increased energy consumption. Knowledge of best practise detailing in conjunction with specialist
44| SUSTAINABLE FM | JUNE 2010
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