The Forest Stewardship Council Archives - School Construction News https://schoolconstructionnews.com Design - Construction - Operations Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7.11 Samet Corp. Selected to Build New N.C. High School https://schoolconstructionnews.com/2016/02/24/samet-corp-selected-build-new-nc-high-school/ DAVIDSON COUNTY, N.C. — Greensboro, N.C.-based Samet Corp. was selected as the contractor to build the $51 million Oak Grove High School in Davidson County. The 200,000-square-foot facility will be the first new high school to be built in the county in nearly 30 years.

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]]> DAVIDSON COUNTY, N.C. — Greensboro, N.C.-based Samet Corp. was selected as the contractor to build the $51 million Oak Grove High School in Davidson County. The 200,000-square-foot facility will be the first new high school to be built in the county in nearly 30 years.

The new high school is intended to alleviate overcrowding at North Davidson and Ledford high schools, according to the Davidson County Schools website. Scheduled to open in August 2017, advance sitework has already been completed by Winstom-Salem, N.C.-based Lowder Inc.

The project will consist of two-story classroom wings, a student dining and commons area, 550-seat auditorium, gymnasium and seven mechanical platforms to house water source heat pumps and energy recovery ventilators (ERVs), according to October 2015 bid documents. Charlotte, N.C.-based Moseley Architects is serving as the architect on the project.

The school board voted in a November 2015 meeting to start the high school with only grades nine and 10, with an eventual capacity of 1,200 students. When it initially opens, it will house 497 students, including 254 ninth graders and 243 10th graders, according to The Dispatch.

In late November, Davidson County commissioners voted unanimously to approve financing for the new high school, agreeing to spend an additional $600,000 a year to finance the project. The additional funding will help finance unforeseen costs discovered during the planning and layout stages in order to still include football and baseball fields, an auxiliary gym and four additional classrooms. The Dispatch reported that commissioners insisted that the school be built on strong academic and athletic foundations in order to successfully merge students from North Davidson and Ledford high schools.

The Davidson County Board of Education also committed to paying $4.5 million in funds raised by a bond referendum, reported The Dispatch, to bring the total project cost to roughly $46.8 million.
 

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]]> Students Learn From Sustainability https://schoolconstructionnews.com/2010/01/28/students-learn-sustainability/ studentsEducators often talk about teachable moments — opportunities to encourage students to think critically about and learn from a current event or issue.

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]]> studentsEducators often talk about teachable moments — opportunities to encourage students to think critically about and learn from a current event or issue.
 
When planning a sustainable school, educators and designers can develop a high-performance building that not only achieves LEED Silver, Gold, or Platinum certification but also generates learning opportunities in a wide range of curricula, including math, science, information technology, social studies and environmental education.
 
Key factors in achieving these dual goals are a committed owner and project team, an integrated design process, an understanding of the fundamentals of sustainability and the incorporation of visible design features and energy and water measurement devices that display data for students to see and use.
 
A Committed Team
 
When planning a high-performance building with opportunities for learning, the owner should assemble a core team of school leaders, teachers and building managers who are committed to attaining these goals.
 
A project team should be selected based on a demonstrated passion for sustainability and real-world experience with sustainable school planning, design and construction.
 
The most successful projects also have a sustainable design champion on the owner’s team and the project team. On the owner’s side, the champion may be the superintendent or a member of the school board — a person who can elicit the enthusiasm and support of the stakeholders, including the board and community. On the project team’s side of the table, the sustainability champion is usually a member of the architectural or engineering team, who often is the LEED administrator.
 
The most successful sustainable school projects use LEED as a qualitative guideline for discussion of planning, design and construction issues, rather than as a simple quantitative checklist for chasing LEED certification points.
In the right hands, the LEED for Schools Reference Guide becomes a framework for discussion of the critically important sustainability issues and helps the owner and project team to define the characteristics and features of a high-performance building. 
 
An Integrated Process
 
The most successful projects also use an integrated design process to achieve a sustainably designed school building that fulfills the owner’s educational mission and program.
 
Traditionally, project teams hand off the design in a linear fashion from one member to another. The owner defines the educational program; the architect defines the size, shape and overall aesthetic of the building; the structural engineer determines the most cost-effective structural form; the mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineers design systems to supply and operate the building; and finally, the team hands off completed, approved construction drawings to the builder.
 
But the problem with the use of a linear design process on a sustainable school building is that a sustainable feature might be derailed anywhere along the line if one member decides that it won’t work.
 
In contrast, an integrated design team brings all of the design, engineering and construction disciplines to the table to find solutions that work.
 
For example, when a cistern was proposed to collect stormwater at a new high school, the entire team identified the ideal location of the cistern and uses for the collected water. Not only was this a sustainable, cost-effective design solution, it also qualified for nine LEED points and helped develop related science lessons.
 
Visible Features
 
Incorporation of visible features of sustainability and energy and water measurement devices that display data for students to see and use are essential to development of curricula related to the features of the sustainable school building.
 
Let students see a green roof, waterless urinals and other water-saving plumbing fixtures, abundant daylight and views of the outdoors. Install instruments that measure water and energy usage and display them in a public place, such as the lobby or student commons, and on a dedicated school Web page.
 
Involve teachers, curriculum specialists and the project team’s LEED-accredited professional in developing lessons that use the features and data generated by the sustainable building. 
 
In addition to benefiting students, the LEED rating system offers a design innovation point for educational outreach.
 
Today, a high-performance school building has an additional meaning beyond efficient use of resources, lower life-cycle operating costs and enhanced user health and comfort. It is a building that teaches.
 
Bryna Dunn, AICP, LEED AP, is vice president and director of environmental planning and research at Moseley Architects in Richmond, Va. Contact her at bdunn@moseleyarchitects.com.
 

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