6 South West Building & Construction
March 2011 NPS GROUP
Building the country’s first ‘climate-change-ready’ school
NPS South West discusses a project of national interest which is under way in Exeter.
MONTGOMERY School in Exeter will deliver the UK’s first Zero Carbon Exemplar School built to the Passivhaus standard - the UK’s first ‘climate-change- ready’ school.
The school will be a 420-pupil primary (plus nursery) built in one of the most socially deprived wards in the county.
It is considered that the
facilities will, in both architectural and environmental terms, form a beacon to encourage interest regionally and nationally, fostering community cohesion and providing economic regeneration in an area that feels cut off from investment and attention.
The design team acknowledge that the simplest way to produce
a zero-carbon design would be to build a typical school replacing the gas boiler with biomass for heating and buying electricity via a green tariff for power and lighting. Such an approach is considered unsustainable and without value as it relies on continued use of precious
An impression of how the new school will look. resources.
Utilising an innovative approach, Montgomery will use the minimum amount of resources including fuels. In addition, the scheme will be modular, utilising off-site pre- fabrication and multiple repeatable units where
appropriate.
All of the energy required for heating, lighting and power will be generated on site.
The design team has the view that passive-design is not the attachment or supplement of architectural design, but an integrated design process with the architectural design - a holistic approach.
The design philosophy can be summarised as:
Resource lean - The
Passivhaus standard will be adopted, setting a limit of 15kWh/m2 for heating, compared to a typical school energy demand of 55kWh/m2/yr. Balancing heating and
ventilation - Where the main heating source will be the teachers and pupils themselves radiating heat into the high thermal mass elements (concrete) of the structure. Balancing this input will be mechanical
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32