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A high-performance school is not just about one element, but an integrated system of design elements that include indoor environmental quality, water usage, adequate lighting, natural ventilation, energy efficiency and the responsible use of materials. Because there are so many pieces to this puzzle, hours are spent talking with all the key stakeholders about goals, strategies and building usage. The process begins with a series of questions:

1. What is the academic goal of the space?
2. What program adjacencies need to be maintained?
3. How much flexibility do you need?
4. How will it function over time?
5. How does the community use the building?

Once these questions and many others have been answered, the process must move forward and start to look at other considerations, such as geographical attributes. One of the first meetings would be to outline what the school administrators and district managers needed from this facility. This school features many state-of-the-art elements and serves many purposes beyond its origin as a middle school. It houses the District’s central food service facility, a central technology space that provides all the information technology needs of the district and it has to serve the community long into the future.

The Y2E2 building’s four full-height atria draw sunlight into the building, allowing the building to be substantially daylit by natural means. Their height also encourages the escape of rising warm air, which in turn draws cool air into the building at lower floors, allowing the building to be substantially ventilated by natural means. Finally, with shared spaces like classrooms, seminar rooms, conference rooms, lounges, and kitchens clustered around the atria, they have been deemed Collaboration Cores by students, faculty, and staff.

Once the program and project goals have been established, the designer can get to work. He or she must balance functionality with beauty, purpose with inspiration. There has been a great deal of research, studies and reports conducted to find out what the effects of buildings are on the occupants, and even more detailed, how school buildings affect children on their success and learning. The Heschong Mahone Group found in 1999 and reconfirmed in 2003 that there is a statistically compelling connection between daylighting and student performance. Students with the most daylighting in their classrooms scored 20 percent higher on math tests and 26 percent higher on reading tests in one year than those with the least amount of daylight. These effects were all observed with 99 percent statistical certainty.

What is daylighting exactly? Daylighting is a design technique in which direct, diffused or reflected daylight is used to provide general or supplemental lighting in a building. This is accomplished in a myriad of ways. In the Baker Prairie Middle School, a daylighting analysis was completed at the BetterBricks Integrated Design Lab, an effort of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance and the Energy Studies in Buildings Lab at the University of Oregon. This analysis took into account many factors, such as building orientation, angles of the sun, landscape surrounding the building and

local climate. A full size classroom mockup was built by the local Canby high school students allowing designers and engineers the chance to experiment with the best place to put skylights, test natural convection systems, displacement ventilation systems, minimize and integrate electric lighting, conduct energy modeling (an hour by hour simulation of sunlight) and experiment with different types of window glazing.

The trick to daylighting is to couple it with an extremely efficient natural ventilation system, garnering as much natural light as possible while still keeping the building cool in the warm spring and summer months. In the Baker Prairie facility, this was accomplished by expanding on previous natural ventilation strategies. Because of such mild temperate climate in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, night cooling through the use of a motorized damper system and thermal mass eliminates the need for air conditioning. These insulated dampers and air inlets are synchronized with the control system and permit night cooling without manual operation.

Because the two systems are so closely linked through their operational performance, natural ventilation has to be considered in the same geographical manner as daylighting. Orientation of the building, local climate, landscaping and wind conditions are all considered when designing for natural ventilation. The most important criteria is to design the space to allow for a natural convection process to occur, therefore no electric fans are necessary. Natural ventilation is defined as passively supplying outdoor air to a building interior for ventilation and cooling. If designed correctly, with the consideration of building location and use, all or part of the mechanical cooling/heating system can be replaced. In addition to regulating the temperature of the building, it also improves indoor air quality.

Children are much more vulnerable to environmental contaminants than adults because they are still growing and developing. Their immune systems cannot fight off infectious organisms with the same ability as adults. Exposure to common molds and damp environments have been associated with childhood respiratory illnesses, such as allergies, bronchitis and asthma. Lack of good ventilation can lead to a buildup of carbon dioxide and other indoor pollutants which can lead to behavioral problems, headaches and fatigue which in turn diminishes a student’s ability to concentrate or learn.

Natural ventilation and daylighting are only two components of an integrated design system. The important word in integrated design is the word, “design.” A particular building has particular needs, challenges and issues to resolve. Integrated design considers a building’s design, structure, use, load, climate and systems as a whole in order to get the most benefit, both economically and environmentally. The genius of an integrated design system is the ability of the design team to look beyond traditional, linear design strategies and incorporate new ideas, new solutions and the overall purpose of the building and find a way for them to work together, seamlessly.

Why design a school with an integrated system? Why implement daylighting and natural ventilation? There are obvious benefits: saving money on operating costs for cash-strapped school districts; being able to put more money into staffing and school resources; better learning environment for kids; better work environment for staff leading to a high teacher retention rate; a healthier environment; saving natural resources such as water, energy and natural materials; fostering a better connection to the land, which is a pretty big priority in Oregon. But most importantly, there are benefits that are not so obvious that make a difference. When a school is built with great design and materials, it seems that kids feel like someone cares about them and their future. They learn lessons that cannot be measured or quantified, lessons like respect for the environment around them, respect for their school and for other people’s property, pride in their surroundings.

Green, sustainable, energy-efficient schools not only save school districts money, but provide an environment where all children can learn and succeed, setting the stage for the future generation to become smart, capable adults.

Jerry Conduff, Associate Principal, BOORA Architects, Portland, Oregon.

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