Bowbridge Primary in Notts was the winner of BCSE’s ‘Greening the School’ industry award in 2009. As the ‘Zero Carbon Task Force’ seems a distant memory, it is worth remembering what Bowbridge stood out for.
Wood-burning boilers at Bowbridge
The school’s staff and community were involved right from the start of this project so that the new extension could enhance the school’s place as a key part of the relatively deprived community in which it sits.
There is adult education on site, a wide wireless access and pensioner luncheon clubs amongst other community initiatives, and this plays a large part in the sustainability of the wider community.
The building’s core material is timber to minimise embodied energy. The frame is laminated and the timber floor, roof and walls are designed to be in a diaphragm to reduce material usage.
The roof covering is single ply with the rain screen being largely cedar and windows and door timber with aluminium skin on the southern windows for longer low maintenance life. Off the classrooms is a large atrium, designed as a multi-use space which contains libraries, work areas, stairs and is lit by daylight from the large windows. The area contains the rainwater harvesting and live energy consumption readouts which are also available on the school’s intranet for curriculum use.
Here’s a good article that we found on the NCSL’s Future website about Bowbridge and the ways they have involved a wide group of people in thinking through the school’s design. Insulation levels are high and the ventilation and lighting system have been made simple to use and automatic with user override.
Heating is provided by a biomass boiler using locally sourced and grown wood pellets. Water heating is firstly from roof mounted solar panels, topped up from the boiler or in summer electricity. The boiler has a window and stickers explaining the workings as part of the learning resource.
Ventilation is natural, using a computer controlled system linked to windows and dampers on the ground floor and rooflights on the first floor. The building uses rainwater harvested water to supply the toilets and taps are noncorrosive to reduce water use.
We thought that the school was an exemplar of how sustainable design could be used to further wider school and community agendas. Kudos to Nottinghamshire County Council, working in partnership with key stakeholders, has delivered a building fit for 21st century education and a symbol of efficient and effective sustainable design. Raj Arora at Notts, in particular, gave this project the kind of support that it needed.
In short, we were impressed. And it wasn’t the only great school that we looked at either. Among the many other schools that we looked at, Exwick Heights Primary School in Exeter (developed by NPS Property Consultants Ltd) was pretty impressive as well. Maybe more about that one another day?
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