Sustainable school buildings: The environmental impact of any new building is now at the top of the agenda for independent schools. Managers must decide to what extent they want to use sustainable materials and also consider energy efficiency too.
It is now possible to create very sustainable school buildings that are inspiring and comfortable places for teaching and learning, although it takes effort and good communication to make this happen.
Here, we showcase some of the best recent examples of school developments with built-in sustainable features that might inspire you on your next build.
Gresham’s, Norfolk: Dyson Building
In July this year, Sir James Dyson officially opened the £18.75 million building he funded at his former school, Gresham’s. The impressive facility – that bears the name of one of the UK’s most celebrated engineers of modern times – is a focus for science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics education and is also being used by local schoolchildren. They are invited in regularly to make the most of the inspiring steel and glass environment, which has been carefully designed to encourage original thinking.
“Sustainability was designed in from the outset.”
However, key to the brief for Dyson’s architects, Lubetkin and Stirling Prize-winning Wilkinson Eyre, was that the development should have low running costs, optimal lifecycle costs and demonstrate the principles of sustainability.
“This was an opportunity to construct a statement building balancing its form, function and ongoing performance,” explains Gresham’s headmaster, Douglas Robb.
Sustainability was designed in from the outset. The contemporary space is encased in a light steel structure, clad with glass, distinctive copper panels and 100m² of “green walls”. Ground source heat pumps meet the building’s heating and cooling demands, combined with a natural ventilation system using the stack-effect to draw fresh, cool air into the building at low level and expel warmer air at the roof. Windcatchers provide ventilation to internal classrooms, while perimeter classrooms have opening panels behind the perforated copper façade, which in the science labs are supported by automated panels activated by CO² sensors. Over night, high-level ventilation panels linked to the building management system open for purge-cooling.
A brise soleil shade at roof and first-floor levels reduces solar glare and helps to regulate the indoor temperature and the building’s energy requirements are met by 100m² photo-voltaic panels, which have earnt it an A-rated Energy Performance Certificate. Biodiversity, air purification, and sound insulation are all encouraged by biophilic green walls of 11,000 individual plants and the climbing jasmine and ivy that clings to the Dyson Building’s 26  external fins.
Materials used in the construction were chosen to minimise embodied carbon. Self-finished pre-cast planks were used for floors and roofs, polished concrete for floors, and recycled crushed glass instead of the usual shingle surrounds drainage pipes.
Felsted School, Essex: Marshall Centre for Learning
Felsted School’s sparkling glass and rich red brick Marshall Centre for Learning was officially opened this summer and occupies a prime location in the centre of the school’s 90-acre campus. As well as looking sharp on the outside, this teaching block has a very contemporary interior layout, which responds to the latest thinking in modern teaching, and also incorporates environmentally friendly solutions to ensure that it is both energy efficient and cost-effective.
“A natural ventilation system makes use of the passive effects of wind speed or differences of pressure.”
Each of the Marshall Centre’s 10 classrooms are large, lofty and light, thanks to floor-to-ceiling windows, and some even have movable walls, which allow spaces to be combined to give students more room to move around, which recent research shows can be beneficial learning. Collaboration is encouraged – there are writable walls in every room, big screens onto which students can cast their mobile devices and share their work, and break-out rooms. There is also a series of pods for independent study, and the ground floor foyer doubles as an exhibition space for students’ artwork.
But there’s even more innovation in the fabric of the building, which has been constructed with sustainability and energy-saving in mind. The building has a low-carbon, sustainable Monodraught natural ventilation system, which makes use of the passive effects of wind speed or differences of pressure to create a comfortable and healthy indoor environment, while the installed Thorlux Smart lighting system incorporates controls to minimise energy consumption: the school can expect to save at least 70 per cent on its lighting bill compared to regular lighting. The building also has specialist acoustic rendered ceilings, so it’s no surprise that the Marshall Centre has easily secured an EPC ‘A’ rating.
Felsted’s Marshall Centre for Learning is the result of a design and construction collaboration between architect John Squires, and Stuart Cadman, managing director of Cadman Construction, both with many decades of experience in buildings for education.
Head Chris Townsend says of the project: “It signifies our commitment to providing a sustainable and energy-efficient environment that enables our students to get the most out of the academic education we offer.”
Mountfield Heath, East Sussex: Classrooms
The rustic eco-building that opened this year at Mountfield Heath School in East Sussex has provided much-needed extra capacity for pupils aged 5 to 11 with social, emotional and mental health needs or with an autism or associated diagnosis. It is ideally suited to their needs as well as the surrounding countryside.
The school’s executive headteacher Lyndsey Jefferies chose TG Escapes to design and construct a modular building incorporating two new classrooms, a room for children returning to education, a sensory room, two therapeutic intervention spaces and a small kitchen to help children to develop independent skills that are useful at home.
“It is crucial that the building is in keeping with the woodland and fields around us.”
“A lot of our children suffer from sensory processing issues, so the lighting and the feel of a space are very important,” says Lyndsey. “As we are in quite a rural area it is also crucial that the building is in keeping with the woodland and fields around us. It doesn’t look out of place in our environment.”
Constructed from sustainable timber, Mountfield Heath’s building blends into the landscape and has a low carbon footprint.
“Timber locks up carbon so it has a net positive effect,” explains TG Escapes’ Mark Brown. “Ours is sustainably sourced from FSC or PEFC schemes, which plant more trees than they harvest, increasing carbon reduction. Roughly speaking, from our modelling, embodied carbon in a timber building can be less than 20 per cent of the embodied carbon of a masonry build.”
The construction of the building was energy-saving from start to finish. Offsite manufacturing uses less energy, creates less wastage and requires less transportation than traditional on-site methods, and the sectional timber frame system allows for insulation and airtightness that are second to none, making use of recycled materials where possible.
In everyday use, the heating and cooling systems benefit from the latest adaptive ventilation and air source heat pumps to minimise the energy required and to balance the airflow, depending on the season, keeping CO2 at healthy levels. The building has been future-proofed too – solar panels can be added to make it net-zero in operation and minimise energy bills.
At a cost of £473,202, Mountfield Heath’s new building is a comfortable and inviting space. Warm in winter and cool in summer, it is designed to make sure pupils and staff benefit from plenty of light, are surrounded by natural materials and have easy access to the outdoors – all proven to give a boost to wellbeing.
Brentwood Preparatory School: New assembly hall and classroom buildings
“Bold and playful colours and motifs” attracted the attention of the Royal Institute of British Architects when they awarded a coveted 2022 RIBA East Award to the new development at Brentwood Preparatory School, but the less eye-catching sustainability features also make this a welcome addition to a long-established campus.
The prep was founded in 1892 and the main building is listed, so Cottrell and Vermeulen Architects were tasked with bringing the school bang up-to-date without impinging unduly on its heritage or the environment. The result is a new 500-seat assembly and dining hall, a three-storey classroom block for STEAM subjects and a ground-floor reception area, as well as three inter-connecting nursery rooms – all with sustainability at their core.
“Pitched roofs with north-facing roof lights allow daylight to flood in.”
The assembly hall and classroom block are ventilated naturally and have been cleverly positioned to shield them from the noise of traffic on nearby roads – the wider assembly hall building acting as a baffle for the narrower classroom block. Pitched roofs with north-facing roof lights allow daylight to flood in, but limit over-heating from direct sunlight, so cutting down the need to turn the lights on or to cool the classrooms.
To save on heating (and therefore energy bills) the sustainable school buildings are super-insulated to reduce heat loss. High-efficiency heat pumps and water heaters have been installed and lighting is low-energy throughout; even the hand dryers in the toilets and the accessibility lift are energy efficient.
“This provides an exemplar environment for learning,” says Jonathan Dawes, associate at Cottrell and Vermeulen Architects, “and also for encouraging social responsibility.”