Sustainable design reigns supreme in Scotland

Huge investment is currently transforming the face of education across the UK, and no less in Scotland, where Buro Happold’s involvement in both a university and a special needs school has ensured low carbon solutions combined with buildings designed for educational excellence.

“The government’s aim is to raise standards across all age ranges and create modern learning environments fit for the 21st century,” said Rod Manson, Buro Happold principal based in Glasgow. “How this vision is being delivered is bringing about a revolution in the way our schools and colleges look and operate, and John Wheatley College and Hazelwood School, both Glasgow-based, are excellent examples.”

John Wheatley College in Glasgow’s East End

Designed by Buro Happold and Ahrends Burton Koralek Architects, John Wheatley College, in Glasgow’s East End, is an exemplar, lowcarbon, further education campus building that sets new standards in energy efficiency and sustainable design. The new college building had a brief to create a welcoming building with a sense of accessibility and openness and to achieve high sustainable credentials, including BREEAM Excellent.

The 6,000m3 building, which was built on a brownfield site in the Haghill district of the city and opened last year, contains classrooms, training and workshop spaces, staff and student facilities and administration offices. In addition, certain functions such as hairdressing, the restaurant, the library and childcare will offer services to the local community.

The building itself incorporates key features to help to ensure low energy consumption and sustainability, including exposed thermal mass for natural cooling, extensive use of natural ventilation and wind controlled exhaust ventilation chimneys. Façade shading on south-facing aspects prevents over-heating and glare in summer, while the design still allows as much natural daylighting as possible to penetrate deep into the building.

To further ensure that the college’s environmental impact was minimised, all aspects of the building and building services design were examined, and the Buro Happold SAT (sustainability and alternative technologies) group carried out a feasibility study early in the design.

The study identified a number of renewable technologies which were beneficial, practical and economic, including:

• Using a biomass boiler space/hot water heating to provide the thermal energy to meet the base load space heating and hot water demand.
• Solar thermal modules to meet the hot water demand through the summer months. This extends the period of time when the biomass boiler is turned off, reducing the maintenance costs and fuel requirements.
• Air source heat pumps, concentrated heat from outdoor air is drawn to provide thermal energy to supply space heating via an under floor heating system.
• Solar PV (photovoltaic) modules in the ETFE foil roof providing electricity to supplement the mains electricity supply to the building.
• Rainwater harvesting using the collected rainwater for flushing toilets.

Furthermore, the specification of the mechanical and electrical services equipment was carefully undertaken to ensure that a low energy solution was delivered. The key elements of this strategy include energy efficiency controls on the boiler, low energy artificial lighting, speed controls on all pumps, fans and electrical motors, and daylight linking and movement detection systems on the lighting systems.

In addition, energy data is shown on large screen displays, allowing the staff and students to develop a better understanding of energy consumption and carbon emissions in the building.

Unsurprisingly, the college has also been awarded both the GIA Award for Sustainability and the GIA Award for Education, as well as a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating.

“The project design team have worked extremely hard to develop an integrated architecture and engineering design solution and the final product has demonstrated that a truly sustainable building has been achieved,” said Manson.

“This has been recognised by the industry profession through the award of Sustainable Building of the Year, as presented by the Glasgow Institute of Architects. The College sets new standards in terms of both energy demand and carbon emissions and our post occupancy evaluation process will enable further benchmarking to be obtained during the operation of the building.”

Hazelwood School in Glasgow

Meanwhile, Buro Happold has also helped to provide a sympathetic learning environment for children with severe sensory and, in some cases, mobility impairments at a new school development in the Dumbreck area of Glasgow.

Hazelwood School, which opened recently, is the first school of its kind in Europe and offers a secure and highly stimulating educational experience for up to 50 pupils, enabling each child to grow and develop to their full potential.

The school provides life learning skills for children from ages 4 to 18 who have combinations of visual, hearing, mobility or cognitive impairments.

“An inclusive approach to design that would work for both pupils and staff alike was at the heart of this project from the outset,” said Buro Happold inclusive design specialist Margaret Hickish.

For Buro Happold, achieving a low energy solution was key to the brief, so natural ventilation was the perfect choice to provide fresh air and cooling. However, although the school is located on the edge of parkland, it is also close to major roads, and so it was clear that noise minimisation would provide a challenge to any natural ventilation methods chosen. Therefore, Buro Happold’s solution included lowlevel openings via an acoustic baffle and high-level openings via a roof void plenum, both controlled by motorised louvers, which staff can operate.

Simultaneously safe and environmentally friendly All of the classroom spaces have underfloor heating, principally so that children with impaired sight using the walls for navigation wouldn’t have to navigate around potentially hazardous obstacles such as wall-radiators. Underfloor heating also has the twin benefits of reducing the risk of germs being spread on convection currents, and avoiding heat and energy wastage associated with radiators.

A floor trench carries all the electrical and mechanical services, branching off to distribute into the classrooms. For safety, electrical services are distributed to floorboxes via screed trunking, while at ceiling level, lighting wiring, fire alarm cabling and sprinkler pipework are all concealed in voids between the glulam beams.

Meanwhile, natural daylighting is enabled as far as possible – which saves electricity, especially considering the number of children with vision impairments, who require large levels of light. On lighting fittings, shielded lamps were chosen, with special lensed fittings to cut glare, and dimmable uplighting brightens the rooms on dull days.

Light is also used at Hazelwood as a teaching aid, designed by Buro Happold’s lighting technology specialists (LiT). To one side of the classrooms, coloured lighting uses a three button dial enabling a variety of static colours to be created to allow the children to interact with their environment.

When all three colours are on full, white light is produced for normal use. However, in individual sessions, a child can select a colour and so act as a tool to aid learning, assist with relaxation or provide stimulation depending on the colour selected.

Equally, light is used to assist the children with orientation; classroom lobbies are brighter than the corridor to help provide a visual indication of where classrooms are located and support the sensory wall system that the students use to move through the school. Low level and recessed fittings create a welcoming atmosphere, and a warm appearance at night.

Buro Happold project leader on Hazelwood School, Graham Hayne, said: “This was a very challenging project for all the engineering disciplines but the end result is a marvellous building that should be enjoyed by the whole school community.”

Overall, Buro Happold has over 20 years’ experience in the design of educational buildings, from primary and secondary schools to colleges and universities.

“As with these two shining examples, we focus on making our buildings are safe, attractive, light and airy, and are always designed around the specific requirements of the institution.” said Manson. “Above all, an educational facility must be able to meet the needs of all its different users and form the heart of a vibrant community, and these two both do,” said Manson.