Tony,

all three wants are concept where as all five don't wants are precise. Better the other way round or at the least precise wants.

Jon

Waste of time Tony, see what the architect comes up with first and take it from there. Low running costs and therefore decent levels of energy efficiency are already going to be at the top of the list, hopefully they will go to an architect who has designed schools before and can draw on that experience. However you can spec all the systems in the world for saving money and great design and then find that the BEMS isn't connected correctly to half the kit, no-one knows how to use it anyway and the building is that poorly put together it leaks like a sieve and the windows fall out. But on paper it looks great. Implementation is where it falls down so often it will be built in a rush rather than to a standard

Presently we have a flat roof, sun pipes, massive thermal bridges, parapet walls, dg, air con, heating, communal hand wash basin, odd acoustic detailing, air create blocks, poor u values,

All designed by architects. :(


I would like to produce a good design brief

Posted By: DarylPThink about how people actually access the buildings, as well as how they use them?

So a drop off point that does not cause roads to be blocked.

Posted By: daserraThere was a University campus in the US, I forget where, and they left it without paths during the first term and recorded where everyone walked over the grass, and then did the pathways after once the humans had marked them. Genius, yet so simple although anathema to our top down culture.

We did this once on a golf course construction between the greens and tees. As soon as we had put in the paths after the first season people changed their walking patterns Conclusion, as long as it is convenient people prefer walking on grass.

Tony,

I will have a think about it

Jonti

Posted By: SteamyTea............and I hate kids and think they should be sent to an orphanage, then boarding school, then the forces, then university and eventually let out at 28). But locking them up during the day is not right.

Where have you been all my life Steamy?

Remember; Insanity is hereditary, you can get it from your children.

Coming from an architects perspective, I would suggest very strongly that the brief should be very clear from the beginning.

DONT just ask the architect to produce something and then try to work it to what you would ideally like.

This way people are not wasting their time/money, getting frustrated with a client that starts out "do what you think is best" but then keeps coming back to revise the design multiple times and it becomes clear that they had a pretty good idea of what they wanted in the first place anyway!

In other words in my experience its always much better to spend a bit extra time getting the brief as close as possible to what you want and work from there.

The more the end design changes from the initial brief, the more likely the project is likely to run over estimated budget.

It also means that if you come with a very clear brief from the beginning it will soon become clear if its the right architect or not, by way of their reaction to the brief.

All flat roofs leak! if not immediately then too soon.

parapet walls are thermal bridges, difficult to maintain, can leak, and are unnecessary especially on a new building

daserra wrote: "There was a University campus in the US, I forget where, and they left it without paths during the first term and recorded where everyone walked over the grass, and then did the pathways after once the humans had marked them. Genius, yet so simple although anathema to our top down culture."

I believe it was Christopher Alexander who came up with the idea for the University of Oregon that first implemented it. It's been done elsewhere since. There are some online articles about the project, although not that particular aspect:

http://uplan.uoregon.edu/faq/FAQPatternLanquage.html
http://www.rainmagazine.com/archive/1991-1/the-oregon-experiment-revisited

Ten things that we want in our new buildings and ten things that we dont want

Want
1 Passivhaus

and go from there...


This document might be of help Tony, its in English: http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/energie/pdf/AxelBretzke.pdf

Planning and building a PassiveHouse
(PH) primary school


contents:

0verview


History


Prozess of planing


What is, what does a passivehouse school need?


Why a school in passivehouse quality?


Basic data

Pictures

Other examples

Economy and ecology

Political effects

Details construction and technique


Winter heat protection


heating


Summer heat protection


Ventilation concept


Measurement and controlling


Water, hot and sewage


Electric installation


Scientific Measurement

Resumee

Bushbury Passivhaus school 2011

Bushbury Hill Passivhaus schools

A certified Passivhaus primary school in Wolverhampton designed by Architype and built by Thomas Vale Contruction. Elemental Solutions provided full Passivhaus design advice, detailing and energy modeling working with Alan Clarke and E3 Consulting Engineers. Opened October 2011. Along with Oakmeadow this was one of the first 3 Passivhaus schools to be certified in the UK. Bushbury School has won a number of awards including a CIBSE Building Performance Award which you can read about in the May 2013 issue of the CIBSE Journal. Article available here.


http://www.elementalsolutions.co.uk/passivhaus-schools/



Designing Passivhaus schools video

Presentation at the UK Passivhaus Conference 2011 at the Barbican London with Jonathan Hines and Matt Wisdom. Here we outline the secret to delivering Passivhaus Schools at no extra cost, the innovative ventilation strategy, secrets of good airtightness and some differences compared to German schools.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MffKNX5qlLw

I know this is the Green Building Forum, but I haven't seen much on the comments above that relates to what actually goes on inside the school..!

Having worked on quite a few education projects previously, some of the most important early decisions are to do with what the industry calls 'programme'. There are various structures to teaching (yeargroup clusters, 'campus style faculties' etc.) and the operation of these will dictate (to some extent) how the building/s are arranged.

There will also be decisions to make on teaching methods (projector, whiteboard, laptops) and class size which could fundamentally affect heating loads, servicing provision etc.

Without delving too much into the form-follows-function argument, it's obvious you don't want to make the arrangement too specific, but I guarantee the head/principal/governors etc. will all have opinions on how this should work. A perfectly engineered passivhaus school that doesn't function operationally would be regarded as a poor successor to a leaky old one that let them teach how they want!

Whilst they could be a pain to most architects, the now defunct CABE produced some basic guidelines, most of which have been archived:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110118095356/http://www.cabe.org.uk/design-review/schools/criteria

On the more practical side, publications like Building Bulletin 98 (secondary) and 99 (primary) give spatial and area guidelines for how much space you need based on pupil numbers. NOTE: these are also now discontinued but the newer guidance tends to just refer back to these and then knock off some area for 'austerity'.

The teachers are the ones to ask. the flow of the children round the building, toilets, doors, cloakrooms located in relation to the classrooms. The different needs of different year groups etc. Go look at other schools and see what works.

Cheap simple square buildings and use that roof for lots of solar energy. It will be occupied when there is the most available so no reason why it cannot be self sufficient.

But... why do we keep reinventing the wheel and fueling architects nice holidays? We should build schools like MacDonalds build resurants. They are all the same modules put together as necessary. School needs change as demographics change so a large primary school is needed near a new development but later bigger secondary. Make the schools modular, refine the design as issues are found and in a few years we would have the ability to build cheap schools quickly and move them if necessary to where they are needed.

From my experience of being an architect looking after both new builds and the maintenance of school buildings the only way to get a decent building is to have a design team that truly understands education buildings and, more importantly, a client that can properly specify and brief the team. As with so many public projects a poor client team that can't brief the architect usually result in a poor building well over budget.

Borpin - one big failing for all of us is to ignore history - when I was working for Notts County Council I had to sort out all the numerous problems with the CLASP system that was used for many schools, etc. In principle, brilliant - in reality, a minefield. We could replace the cheap flat roof covering with the latest materials that could give 25 / 30 year life, but the detailing around all the numerous roof lights was impossible to get watertight! Personally, the best school projects reflect the local environment - the new school at Newark was just brilliant due to an inspired head and an Architect that understood how to fit the building into a sensitive location.

Assuming that they're even capable of understanding ventilation - not all are scientists.

I think you are perhaps a little optimistic about "scientists" .

How much control should teachers would be allowed over the learning environment in their classrooms?

I can recall being moved into a new office building, where we were suddenly presented with a "Comfort" conditioned building with no opening windows. I ended up with a forest of desk-plants just to make it liveable in my little bit.

Ferdinand