Kvernhuset Secondary School, Fredrikstad, Norway
– A Different School …Contributing to the Knowledge of Planning and Building Environmental Friendly Schools
Kenneth CHAN Jor Kin, FHKIS F.PFM CFM CFMJ
Introduction
The planning and building process for Kvernhuset secondary school has involved not only skilled workers, craftsmen, engineers, and architects, but also the pupils of today and tomorrow, teachers, parents, and politicians. Through their influence, everyone has been able to contribute to the shaping of this school.
The gross area of the school is 6,488 square metres. The sports hall is 1,847 square metres. The number of pupils will be 450-500.
The ground floor houses all the common areas including office, teachers’ common room, library, canteen, etc. The first floor houses all the classrooms and special rooms.
The Site
The school is located in a forested area just north of the city of Fredrikstad. The site is extremely beautiful and varies between open pine forests on rocky ground to dense spruce forest amidst which runs a little stream[l1]. The forest is a protective screen against wind, dust, and noise, and it also filters out direct sunlight.
Objectives of the Project as an R&D Exercise
The overall aim is to obtain knowledge about environmentally-friendly school buildings and to disseminate this knowledge to school planners.
The idea behind this project was to build a future-oriented school based on Fredrikstad’s commitment as one of the environmental cities in Norway. It is part of the Municipality’s programme for Local Agenda 21. The objectives of the R&D project are:
-According to standard practice, the school building should be area efficient and adaptable to various working methods.
-The school building and yard should be used as teaching tools to support Nature and Environmental Studies.
-The school building should have low purchased energy consumption in respect to space heating, ventilation, and artificial lighting. Renewable energy should be utilized when possible.
-According to the Norwegian assessment method ‘EcoProfile,’ the school building and yard should obtain the best quality class for each of the three areas: Environment, Resources, and Indoor Climate.
Area Adaptability
One objective when designing base areas was to create flexible buildings adaptable to different functions.
The school should have the opportunity to experiment with different pedagogical settings. Rooms and furniture should be adaptable to various working methods. The wings with the pupils’ base areas consist of three zones: area for classes, the ‘spine,’ and a common area.
Changes may easily be accomplished, and the pupils and teachers themselves can arrange and rearrange the layout of their area.
Flexible space
Daylight is everywhere
School Building and Yard as Teaching Tools
Area adaptability, energy saving strategies, and ecological cycles are measures to reduce the consumption of resources.
The objective is to manifest measures that contribute to sustainability in such a way that the measures have a demonstration and teaching effect. With demonstrations in mind, or the thought of the school building and yard as teaching tools, three levels are defined:
The first level is to demonstrate solutions chosen for the whole building complex.
Special emphasis is given to:
-The exploitation of daylight;
-The exploitation of natural driving forces for ventilation;
-The exploitation of geothermal heat (heat pump); and
-the natural cleaning of waste water, both grey and black water
The second level deals with measures that are too expensive, or, for some other reason, not suitable as a solution for the whole building complex.
The pupils’ base areas are divided into three sections which each have different installations for demonstration:
Section YELLOW with a focus on solar energy, active and passive use of solar energy, solar collectors and solar cells, and the monitoring of energy use.
Section GREEN with a focus on growth and recycling of materials,vegetables and plants inside and outside,and ecological cycles.
Section BLUE with a focus on water,collecting water from the roof,and water saving armatures in toilets and washbasins.
Solar panels as a teaching tool
The third level deals with devices that facilitate ecology studies (terrarium, aquarium apparatus) and art decorations to highlight ecological aspects.
Situation and Materials
The buildings are situated along the sides of two hills, facing each other and leaving free from impact as much of the site as possible. The whole project is put together from simple rectangular volumes. This means a great extent of elementproduction that saves costs and time.
The ground floors are ‘cut’ or ‘carved’ into the rock, using the cut as an interior wall in the hall, giving a cavelike feeling. The hills ‘reoccur’ as buildings clad with granite rubble and timber from the site.
Exterior walls are a combination between isolated paneled walls (wood form the site), translucent isoflex, and glass panels.
Local and environmentally-friendly materials employed for the external façade
Landscape
The existing landscape was kept in its original state as much as possible:
-To preserve nature through the construction process;
-To use materials from the site;
-To treat the surfaces close to the entrances;
-To let nature give shape to artificial landscape (play areas, parking areas, walkways, etc.) instead of the opposite; and
-To let nature reclaim the site through time (vegetation on ground floor roofs, rubble heaps, and granite rubble walls)
The School sitting quietly in the tranquil natural environment
Special Technical Solutions
Technical solutions integrated in the design contribute to energy savings and a better indoor climate. The most important renewable resources present on the site are daylight, fresh air, and possible heat and cooling sources from the ground.
The school has a thermal natural ventilation system based on an underground duct-system that minimizes the need for air filters and artificial heating and cooling. As much naturally-produced energy as possible for heating and cooling will be delivered by a heat pump (holes drilled vertically into the rock).
Daylight is let into the building through skylights and translucent facades to increase energy efficiency and provide better working conditions.
Skylight for natural lighting
A wastewater cleaning facility in the lower end of the site is taking care of all the sewage.
The interior of the school will be filled with plants as a means to clean and moisten the air.
Aerial view of the school campus
(Author’s note: This was a building visited by the author as part of the programme of an eco-tour after the Sustainable Building 2002 International Conference convened in September 2002 in Norway. This article is compiled based upon information provided by the school authority, architect, engineer, etc.)
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