Environmental Design + Construction - March 2009 - (Page 18) PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT MAKING STRIDES IN HIGH-PERFORMANCE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. BETHKE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL HAS EARNED A GREEN GLOBES RATING AND LEED CERTIFICATION. PHOTO BY PAUL BROKERING PHOTOGRAPHY, COURTESY OF RB+B. I By Corky Bradley n 2000, RB+B Architects, of Fort Collins, Colo., won a design competition for a prototype elementary school for the state’s Poudre School District (PSD). The school was to be designed and built to the newly introduced “Sustainable Design Guidelines” that the district had drafted in the late 1990s. The result of the design effort became Zach Elementary School, which opened in 2002. Seven years and three prototypes later, PSD, through prudent management of its 2000 bond funds, leveraged its resulting funds to build a fourth iteration of this prototype. In fall 2008, Bethke Elementary School opened as the first school in the nation to achieve a Green Globes rating and Gold certification through the LEED for Schools program. Evolution of a Prototype The original prototype was designed to be environmentally responsible, but the building’s high-performance results increased with each elementary school that was built. After the design and construction of the second and third schools (Bacon Elementary and Rice Elementary), RB+B Architects was challenged to see if the fourth prototype could be even greener. While the school district and design team knew they were green, they didn’t know what shade of green. Measuring Bethke Elementary against industry benchmarks would help them understand how sustainable the schools really were in regard to other K-12 leaders. The design team was challenged to improve the prototype’s design to meet the demands of the new LEED for Schools criteria. However, the school district was not interested in “buying” LEED credits and left it up to the design team to articulate and adjust the building in such a way as to seek out the highest sustainable performance possible without purchasing supplemental technologies or equipment to achieve operational credits. The new prototype was designed for high performance from the get-go. Set on a true east-west orientation, all classrooms face true north or true south and are housed in a two-story portion of the building, which reduces the building envelope size and roof area. An already efficient building envelope 18 ed+c M AR C H 09
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