High Performing Buildings - Winter 2008 - (Page 39)

s a matter of practice, the Guilford County School District, located in north-central North Carolina, encourages its architects and engineers to incorporate holistic, innovative, green solutions that are strongly tied to the curriculum. Understanding how students, teachers, and the community could beneﬁt by building energyand water-efﬁcient, environmentally sound schools, the school district started moving down a new green track several years ago. From the school board to the facilities planning team, the school system has become a signiﬁcant force in promoting sustainable design. The school district is the ﬁrst in the state to develop its own set of detailed green design speciﬁcations, the G3-Guilford Green Guide. The results are now starting to come in, and the ﬁrst two schools, Northern Guilford Middle School and Reedy Fork Elementary School, are proving to be among the best examples of sustainable design in the country. A Both schools incorporate extensive green strategies, some that were used in school designs for the ﬁrst time. Sustainable features include daylighting, energy-efﬁcient building shell, indirect lighting, solar water heating and photovoltaic systems, computer-based real-time monitoring of sustainable systems, interpretive eco-learning centers, recycled materials and use of local products, indoor environmental quality management, and native planting. What these two schools prove is that, for the same budget as typically constructed schools, sustainable design is viable for every school system today. Additionally, both schools were designed to earn the ENERGY STAR® label in accordance with building energy consumption standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and are projected to be among the top 10% in their category nationally. Northern Guilford Middle School is 140,000 ft2 and designed for 950 students. The projected energy performance is 34,730 Btu/ft2 per year. B U I L D I N G S AT A G L A N C E Building Name Northern Guilford Middle School Location 616 Simpson-Calhoun Road, Greensboro, N.C. Size 140,000 ft2 Started 2005 Completed 2007 Use School for 950 students in grades six through eight Cost $20.7 million Distinctions Projected to be among the top 10% of schools in the nation designed to earn the ENERGY STAR® label Building Name Reedy Fork Elementary School Location 4571 Reedy Fork Parkway, Greensboro, N.C. Size 87,000 ft2 Started 2006 Completed 2007 Use School for 725 students in grades prekindergarten through five Cost $13.6 million Distinctions Projected to be among the top 10% of schools in the nation designed to earn the ENERGY STAR® label BUILDING TEAM Owner Guilford County Schools Architect Innovative Design, Inc. Civil Engineering Consultant B & F Consulting, Inc. Landscape Architect Landis, Inc. Structural Engineering Consultant Lysaght and Associates, P A. . MEP Engineering Consultant Padia Consulting, Inc. General Contractor New Atlantic Contracting (Northern Guilford), Barnhill Contracting, Inc. (Reedy Fork) Construction Management Company HiCAPS, Inc. Northern Guilford Middle School’s design provides environmental and Winter 2008 educational benefits. HIGH PERFORMING BUILDINGS 39

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of High Performing Buildings - Winter 2008

High Performance Buildings - Winter 2008
Passing On the Gift: Heifer International Headquarters
Head of the Class: University of Florida’s Rinker Hall
How Far Can You Go? Pearl River Tower
The Proof Is Performance: How Does 4 Times Square Measure Up?
Lighting the Way: Two Guilford County Schools
Montreal’s Retail Example: Mountain Equipment Co-op® (MEC)

High Performing Buildings - Winter 2008