STUDENTS HELP TO CREATE SPACE FOR NEW ECO SCHOOL

Image of the proposed Eco Centre.

STUDENTS in the North East have been working with an architectural firm on provisional plans for a new Eco centre at their school.

Students at Haydon Bridge High School in Northumberland have worked closely with Newcastle architectural practice Space Group and the initial design for the new zero carbon eco-centre has now been unveiled.

A planning application will be presented to Northumberland County Council in September, with work scheduled to start in January.

If planning approval is given Space Group will work with constructor GB Building Solutions as part of the Northumberland Council Framework.

A group of sixth form students who attended agricultural courses in old buildings, decided to undertake a feasibility study on creating new classrooms within a new Zero Carbon Eco centre.

With the help of the council, they lodged a £1m bid with the Government’s Department of Children, Schools and Families, which was successful.

It is planned that half of the money will fund the new Eco centre and the other half on improving the energy performance and carbon footprint of the existing school, which is a typical 1960’s flat roofed building.

The renewable energy measures will apply to the Eco centre and the existing school, and will encompass, Photovoltaic panels, solar water heating, a small scale wind turbine, a biomass boiler, that will serve the existing school, and an air sourced heat pump for the new Eco Centre.

The school has the largest catchment area of any school in England, with a total of around 700 pupils, 60 of whom are boarders. Plans for the eco centre, which would deliver agricultural, sustainability and environmental education, include a flexible science lab, greenhouses and land for horticultural needs.

Space Group project lead Keith Handy said: “For us, this has been a really great project to work on.

“We initially met with year 12 student focus groups and drew up plans that encompassed some of the original ideas which the students spent so much time researching. We used our own valuable experience to develop a design that was pleasing to all, and which delivered in terms of both functionality and sustainability.

“This is an exemplar project that has to deliver on number of sustainability issues, it is also intended that this project will help to influence future schools for both refurbishment projects and new school buildings.

“The use of renewable technologies incorporated into both the new and existing buildings will be monitored in great detail to appreciate the benefits in both energy usage and carbon reductions which can be achieved. The design also has to be sustainable in functional content, allowing it to meet a wide range of end user requirements and flexibility is a key feature of the design, allowing the spaces to be used for a wide range of activities from science labs to lecture space.

“It’s not often you get to work on a something that’s going to have such a real life impact and the students have put a lot of work into the research, their enthusiasm has been infectious.

“Our design philosophy for the Eco Centre incorporates the key elements of Passivhaus principles, this is a sustainable design philosophy, which focuses on both minimising heat loss through the building fabric and maximising heat gains by both the environment and internal usage. This reduces the reliance on over complicated, building services and exploits basic good practice design principles, for example, orientation, fenestration, building envelope and air tightness. This is fundamental to the wider design of quality management procedures, we as a practice are adopting.”

If planning approval is given, the centre will be built by the school’s existing greenhouses, so the ‘statement’ structure can be highly visible, without being a hindrance to any potential future redevelopment of the rest of the school.

It will be centred around two rooms – a science lab and a general classroom – and will also feature a ‘break-out’ centre space and external sections for outdoor learning.

Benches in the lab will be movable to create space for events if required, with the centre already being billed as an educational hub not only for Haydon Bridge, but for its partnership schools and the community.

It will also form a new centre for students undertaking the diploma in environmental and land-based studies.

Aluminium, wood panelling and glass will feature heavily in the design, with sophisticated double glazing meaning heat loss is minimised and overheating prevented.

A sedum roof over the larger classroom will reduce the surface water run-off into the existing sewers prevent the need for drainage systems, while water flowing from the other large roof will be utilised on the allotment gardens through a simple irrigation system. This is an essential requirement of all new developments.

Wind turbines and other renewable technologies will form the main power sources, in order to minimise the reliance upon energy sources from elsewhere.