FEATURE
Clare Devine,
Head of Capita
Architecture’s
Education Division,
looks at how a UK
primary school in
leafy Hertfordshire
is set to become
a template for
sustainable school
design across
the world...
HOWE DELL – LEADING TH
hereas many of us look universities to colleges and primaries, UK feature a revolutionary new heating
W
fondly upon our old schools are either being given swish eco system – Interseasonal Heat Transfer (IHT)
school years, there’s makeovers or new state of the art – that uses the school playground to heat
probably very few of us premises are being developed from and cool its buildings.
who look fondly on our scratch. This new system has been invented
old school buildings. All too often our Of all the new primary schools that and developed by ICAX Ltd and works by
experience of school building design has have opened over the last decade Howe capturing heat energy from the sun via a
ranged from poorly maintained, cramped, Dell is certainly one of the most exciting. collection pipe network just beneath the
draughty Victorian buildings at primary Commissioned by Hertfordshire County surface of the school playground. Fulcrum
school age to the well intentioned but Council, designed by a Capita Consulting – who were pivotal in the
asbestos-packed, artic in winter, Architecture led consultant team, and development of sustainable features within
greenhouse in summer, post-war buildings project and construction managed by the building – worked with ICAX to
of our ‘teenage’ years. Mace, the new multi-million pound facility integrate the new system which was also
Whether children’s lives are easier has been designed and built to awarded £244,000 of grant funding by
these days is a point of constant debate incorporate the latest elements of the Carbon Trust as part of its mission to
but one area where everything is environmental sustainability. What’s more, develop commercially viable low carbon
consistently improving is sustainable it has been sending ripples through the technologies.
school design. From academies and industry as the first building in the world to It works by storing energy in
computer-controlled thermal banks in the
ground under the school, releasing it to
heat the buildings in winter via a series of
heat exchangers linked to both the
underfloor heating and a TermoDeck
system. Not only that, it is also able to
capture the frost of cold winter nights,
store it, and use it to keep the building
cool in the summer.
Nevertheless, Howe Dell is also home
to a host of other renewable energy
technologies including solar thermal water
heating, a photovoltaic array, and a soon-
to-be-installed wind turbine capable of
exporting surplus electricity production to
the National Grid. Internally, the
development utilises zero VOX materials
including Ecoseal paints and Interface
carpets (the pile material containing not
less than 80% post-industrial recycled
polymer); a natural ventilation strategy to
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SUSTAINABLE FM | APRIL 2008
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