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 to 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 daylighting 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. Pesticide 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. The project team for the Radnor project will discuss green features evaluated and utilized in previous projects. Construction costs and associated paybacks that make economical sense will be evaluated without compromising the overall quality of the environment. The project team Joseph M. Smith, discusses the rationale for inclusion or exclusion of these features into the new Middle School Project. And finally, the completed design for the school will be presented and discussed.