Energy efficient academies

This is a brief study of three college buildings that were designed to be highly energy efficient. While high insulation standards and efficient plant and control systems are now almost standard the remaining problem in educational buildings is to control ventilation in order to avoid excessive heat losses and also to provide adequate natural ventilation to avoid the need for air-conditioning. In the majority of cases there should be no need to air-condition new educational buildings in the UK and it should be avoided whenever possible if CO2 emissions are to be controlled. However, a combination of increased use of IT equipment, increased urban traffic noise, airtight buildings, restricted sites that dictate building orientation and climate change has made the ability to keep the buildings within comfort temperatures, by the use of natural ventilation alone, an increasing challenge. The three buildings described here are in Birmingham’s inner city and all experience the problem of traffic noise and restricted site conditions. However, each building has a different approach to solving the problem of natural ventilation. All the buildings are highly insulated and incorporate energy efficient plant and controls. However, an important design parameter agreed at the outset was that all buildings should be naturally ventilated and allow for occupant interaction in achieving comfort conditions. The designs were, therefore, based on the principle that the less ‘kit’ installed; the fewer things can go wrong and the simpler the building controls are to understand