Green Building Design for Schools—The Next Time Around

Abstract

Special care must be applied to the proper planning and design of public school facilities. Student populations for this age group are prone toward high levels of inner ear deficiencies, and they struggle in difficult acoustical environments. Additionally, students with asthma conditions must contend daily in building environments with marginal ventilation systems. What can be done? Schools must be free from unnecessary ambient noise and indoor air pollutants. The design professional must provide extraordinary design leadership through the use of natural day lighting and daylight modeling. Qualified acousticians should be engaged to evaluate designs for better learning environments. Operations and maintenance staff can be trained in the benefits of good indoor air quality. Pesticides and herbicide use can be reduced or eliminated. Town constituency, school board members, parents, staff and students should be educated on the benefits of the LEED initiatives and the certification process. Since children spend vast amounts of time in these facilities during critical physical growth periods, they need to be afforded the protection of such building design and construction.Accordingly, in Radnor, Pennsylvania, such an initiative is underway -the construction of a LEED driven middle school with a different twist. For this project, the school district, the engineer, and the architect have all completed "green" projects in the last few years. Armed with the experience of lessons learned, the project team is endeavoring to provide a high performance school for the township. A school that is not only energy efficient, but also healthy, comfortable, well lit, and providing all the amenities needed for a quality education.

Climate Responsive and Safe Earthquake Construction: A Community Building a School

“…Unfortunately preliminary studies or the first value engineering session typically try to rule this option out due to higher construction costs. Hence, distributing from the ceiling and returning low is sometimes utilized as a compromise (Johnson et al, 2005)." The prototype construction was planned, developed and constructed in order to realize most of the above features.…”

“…It has to be noted that a comfortable indoor climate in school not only helps to retain students in the school but also contributes towards better performance of the students. Research has shown that the best temperature range and humidity for reading and learning is between 68 F and 74 F and 40-60%, respectively (Johnson et al, 2005). Issa et al (2011) conducted a study aimed to compare a number of quantitative and qualitative aspects of usage across a sample of 10 conventional, 20 energy-retrofitted and three green Toronto schools.…”

Natural Light and Productivity: Analyzing the Impacts of Daylighting on Students’ and Workers’ Health and Alertness

“…Studies show that teachers are happier when they have the ability to control their environment. Healthy and happy teachers save schools money and perform better in teaching [29]. In contrast, a school with inadequate lighting design might demote students' ability of learning.…”