Date: 06 July 09
Author: Caroline Ednie, Web Editor
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A new primary school at Acharacle - 40 miles west of Fort William – is the result of over 20 years’ campaigning by the local community, and five years hard work by the client, Highland Council, and pioneering ecological architects Gaia. Following the school's recent opening, Gaia Principal Howard Liddell spoke exclusively to www.scottisharchitecture.com’s editor Caroline Ednie about the evolution of ‘UK’s greenest new primary school.’
Introduction
Following work by Gaia on the development of a brief document for an exemplar sustainable school for Highland Council, the practice were subsequently successful in securing the appointment to design a replacement primary school at Acharacle.
HL: “Our association with the project began in 2003 when we took a group of people from Scotland to look at schools in Norway, and amongst our group was Brian Hemming, who was in charge of schools procurement for Highland Council. Later that year we were approached to write the brief for Highland Council schools, on the understanding if that we wrote the brief for the school it would be delivered in a green way. So, we wrote the brief and when the project went out to tender we were the successful bidders based on price. We were very eager to get this commission.
Highland Council does have a PPP and PFI programme but Acharacle School was taken out of this process. In this way the council had more control over what was being delivered. One of the things that became very clear when we visited Norway and Germany was that the schools that were procured traditionally were much more likely to deliver a green agenda than those procured thorough PFI. This has also become very clear in this country. As things stand at the moment I am very disappointed that the PPP and PFI schools in this country have not taken on the green agenda.”
Design
Acharacle School has been constructed within the playground of the original school, the new building designed to provide a healthy, state of the art, low tech and low carbon environment for pupils, staff and the community for generations to come. As the starting point for the project, a series of workshops were held with the children, staff and community to discuss the design of the school, which resulted in a two-winged layout with a central, communal entrance. The ‘classroom wing’ is oriented east-west to maximize solar gain, while the ‘community wing’ is aligned close to a north-south axis.
“The brief document had been written in full consultation with the school community and when we presented our ongoing schemes at the workshops, we identified where we’d fulfilled the requirement in their brief. One of the most important elements of the design is the community wing, which is primarily arranged around a big hall. This will host the Feis, which is a traditional Gaelic arts and culture festival with music and poetry. The Feis in Ardnamurchan is very important - the school itself teaches in both English and Gaelic. This year, for the first time in ten years the Feis is being held in the main hall, which is an important event for the wider community, who have been hugely involved in the school project."
Eco-minimalism
The design of the school was undertaken from the very outset to be a model of ‘Eco-minimalism’ – a philosophy which seeks to use careful design to achieve sustainable construction, rather than attempt to achieve this through the addition of superfluous, ‘bolt-on’ technologies and their associated energy, cost and maintenance penalties.
Construction
The school will be the first example in the UK of ‘Brettstapel’ construction - a glue-less variant of massive timber construction imported from Austria. This has helped to create a highly insulated and airtight school, which easily achieves the internationally recognized German ‘Passivhaus’ standard. Other solid timber used in the project, such as decking, battens, bridge glulams, and beads were from homegrown timber.
“The bulk of the building – the superstructure - was procured from Austria in massive timber form. We knew the factory very well, and they were also able to give us a guarantee that the building would reach Passivhaus standard - which means that heating systems aren’t required as its very airtight and with very thick with insulation on the walls. We also chose this route at the time (around 3 years ago) as we had worked on an experimental project using massive timber, and there was the possibility of procuring a package deal from Austria. At that point the UK Pound was strong against the Euro and we were set to make a saving of around half a million pounds. But with the subsequent significant problems with the exchange rate, the promise of savings was never delivered. That came as a big disappointment to us.”
CO2 Credentials
Importing such a substantial proportion of the building from central Europe is environmentally questionable. However, by using such high volumes of solid timber, the building has sequestered, or locked in, around 20 times more carbon dioxide (CO2) than was emitted during the transport of the timber elements from Austria to Scotland.
“Essentially, the building acts like a sponge for carbon. People are currently obsessed with having wind turbines and all sorts of stuff on their roof to keep the carbon down but actually you can do it by building in timber. For every kilo of timber used 2 kg of CO2 is soaked up. It also gives us an intrinsically healthy building material, and deals well with the indoor humidity.
The ideal scenario in future is that we wouldn’t have to import the timber. That’s been our mission for 15 years now, to set up an equivalent factory in Scotland that could produce massive timber, but nobody has been interested. We’ve had conference after conference but until you build something nobody seems to get it, so there is some interest now since we’ve built this school. I’m looking forward to the possibility of the first manufacturer producing massive timber out of Scottish timber."
Features and Performance
Under regular occupancy conditions there will be no heating requirement; the heat from the occupants and electronic equipment being sufficient to heat the building. The hot water for the hot water is supplied from highly insulated hot water cylinders. In turn, the water is heated by electric immersion elements powered by a 6kW wind turbine that is sited on a hill behind the school. Internal air quality is controlled by a combination of natural ventilation and the use of hygroscopic materials throughout the school. Natural day lighting levels have been optimized to ensure an average daylight factor (DFave) of 4.5%, and efficient lighting installed as a matter of course.
This is the first school in the UK as far as I’m aware that is heated by the children – there is only a backup heating system. We were fulfilling the agenda that we have been working to for a long time, which is based around healthy indoor climates using healthy materials. Dealing with moisture and toxic materials is very important to us. Our approach isn’t just all about saving the environment. It’s also about using materials that we know are not dangerous to health. There are an alarming amount of building materials that are very dangerous to health, and we’ve written a report on this for the Scottish Government. There are 55,000 building materials, and only 3% of these have ever been tested for toxicity. This is a major issue that people aren’t taking any notice of because they’re so obsessed with saving energy.
If there’s one single thing that we’re proud of about this school it’s that we’ve created an indoor environment that’s free of any toxic chemicals - which I think is probably unique. We even had the furniture specially designed using non-toxic materials. We discovered at the time that we couldn’t get furniture for schools in the UK that does not have materials that are off-gassing toxins to the environment, but eventually found a supplier that was willing to go the extra yard and produce non-toxic furniture. And this was the only company in the UK willing to go that extra yard! There has been a prevailing culture in the UK which hasn’t been interested in such important issues, where the ‘Greens’ were simply thought of as funny people with sweaters and sandals.”
Conclusion
To help ensure the smooth running of the building once it is completed, and to record successes and failures in the project for the benefit of the design team and client, Gaia and the M+E consultants will also be employed for 2 years after the building is occupied to ensure effective user patterns for the building, and highlight technical issues which can inform future construction projects.
"Innovation is core to our practice and we’ve been involved in this approach to innovation and sustainability for the past thirty years. We’ve worked all over Europe to bring best worldwide practice to Scotland. The practice embodied in the school has been popular in Scandinavia but people have only been interested in sustainability over the past few years - for the first 25 years of our practice nobody was interested in sustainability. This school can be seen as the result of our experience of working in this area for thirty years, and so far the children love the school, and everyone within the community is very appreciative."
All images courtesy of Gaia Architects. (Click on images to enlarge)
Key features of the school also include: concentration on conservation of resources through use of efficient electrical appliances (i.e. lights) and water fittings (i.e. taps, toilets and showers) before considering the required demand; collection of rainwater for use in toilets; monitoring displays to keep the school children aware of energy consumption, water consumption, temperature, humidity and CO2 levels in the school; procurement of loose school furniture which has been developed to minimise off-gassing of harmful VOCs.
Externally, the form of the building provides sheltered areas for children to use and maintain, and a colour consultant has provided a colour scheme for the inside and outside of the building that is both vibrant and stimulating, and has been designed to enhance the experience of those using the school.
Acharacle School featured in the recent Future Scotland Debate looking at the issuse of Education. To find out more about the Future Scotland Debates and to book your place at forthcoming Debates on the subject of Regeneration; Sustainability and Health click on the following Lighthouse Link
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