by Shane Henson — November 30, 2011—Canada is celebrating the recognition of its first LEED Canada Platinum school, the Dr. David Suzuki Public School, and hopes it will be the first among many to secure the coveted certification managed by the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC).
Not surprisingly, the Dr. David Suzuki Public School, located in Ontario, is also the most energy-efficient school in Canada, achieving all 10 optimized energy points. The school’s design team says it made this goal a reality through the construction of a highly insulated, impeccably sealed building envelope and the use of an innovative mechanical design that included a ground source heat pump.
To decrease the energy needed to treat ventilation air (heat in the winter, cool in the summer), fresh air is brought in through five intake units—one connected to a solar wall, one connected to earth tubes, and three fitted with energy recovery ventilators. The ventilation air sent through the solar wall is heated by the sun as it passes behind the solar panels, while the air passing through the concrete earth tubes is preheated or precooled by the ground before entering the building’s ventilation system.
To decrease the lighting load in the building, there are “light wells” in the hallways. A sawtooth window lets light into the center of the building and the light wells allow this to light the ground floor as well as the second floor. In the classrooms, plentiful windows decrease the need for artificial light, and occupancy sensors in these rooms only turn on lights when there are people in them.
Beyond these energy-saving technologies, the school also produces energy through a variety of renewable energy systems, such as a 36 kW PV system and horizontal and vertical axis wind turbines. According to CaGBC officials, the first two months of post-occupancy building commissioning helped bring energy use down below even the predicted energy use to achieve a metered 86 ekWh/m2 compared with the Canadian school average of 281 ekWh/m2.
Of course, as a green building, the school is also adept at conserving water. The Dr. David Suzuki Public School is predicted to use 47 percent less water than a conventional building through the use of low-flow plumbing fixtures and a 20 m3 rainwater cistern that stores rainwater collected on the roof to be used to flush toilets. Outside, a native species landscaping plan means no irrigation system was necessary.
As this is a school facility, incorporating educational opportunities into the building itself was important. To help the students see the various technologies and design strategies at work in this high-performance building, the design team included a variety of visual clues, including:
- a clear pipe in the hallway that shows rainwater being sent from the roof to the concrete cistern below ground
- glazed walls in the mechanical rooms
- a green roof classroom
- a visible rooftop solar sun tracker
- a transparent radiant floor panel
- glazed walls in the mechanical rooms
