We've seen green portable classrooms from Toby Long Design and Frog Zero classrooms from Project Frog, and this Gen7 School from American Modular Systems is an interesting option to add to the mix. The school is factory-built and delivered about 90% complete with an unbelievable 90-day turnaround. AMS indicates that the Gen7 classroom could save owners ~$100,000 per year in direct costs *and* will come with a ton of green features:
Sacred Heart Schools' new Michael J. Homer Science and Student Life Center in Atherton broke some records recently. It's the first school to obtain LEED Platinum certification under the LEED for Schools program and the first school in San Mateo County to use fruits and vegetables from an on-site organic garden for food service in the school cafeteria. It's also designed to use 69% less energy than a typical school and features some incredible green features.
The University of British Columbia's Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) will be a candidate to be regarded as one of the greenest buildings in North America once it is completed. The building, which is presently under construction in Vancouver, is not only a superb example of sustainability in building design, but its purpose is to foster and accelerate sustainability and to bring together researchers, businesses, and nonprofits to work collaboratively on issues of sustainability.
Kroon Hall, the new home of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, has been awarded Platinum certification, according to the Office of Public Affairs of Yale University. Kroon Hall was designed to use 81% less water and 58% less energy than a comparable building, helping it receive a total of 59 LEED points. With the help of a massive and beautiful solar array, about 25% of this building's electricity should be generated on-site, too.
Putney School, a prep boarding school for grades 9-12, needed a field house and retained Maclay Architects to design a green one. Literally. The ~$5 million green building is one of only a few net-zero energy buildings of its kind. It's also a contender for LEED Platinum certification and boasts a number of impressive green elements.
Yesterday, First Lady Laura Bush, architect Robert A. M. Stern, and landscape architect Matthew Urbanski unveiled the design of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Texas. Located on the east side of SMU's campus, the design will complement the consistent Georgian architecture of the rest of the university. And when complete, the $250 million building will be LEED Platinum certified.
The portable classroom is just about as ubiquitous as the mobile home, so our ears perked when Toby Long, principal of Clever Homes and Toby Long Design, mentioned these first-generation, prefab, green portable classrooms. Working with the Chartwell School in Seaside, California -- itself the first LEED Platinum campus in the country -- Toby Long Design designed, fabricated, and installed two relocatable classroom structures on the Chartwell campus. Almost incredibly, the on-site work only took about four weeks.
The new science and library building at Crossroads College Preparatory School, located in the city of St. Louis, is seeking LEED Platinum certification. If obtained, it will be the first K-12 school in St. Louis to earn certification. Head of School Billy Handmaker* was committed to achieving the highest level of certification possible, while still spending within the budget and ending up with a good looking building. He said, "from the beginning, we said 'we want Platinum, but won't compromise."
We've mentioned Arizona State University's green School of Sustainability, and we've also mentioned greenscreen modular trellis panels, but we're going to bring it all full circle here in one article. ASU used greenscreen green walls in the renovation of this 1960s building to add a little something extra -- to cool the interior, clean the air, and bolster the design. A wall was removed to add this distinctive element, and the strategy seems to be working.
The Open Architecture Challenge is an international design competition that's hosted every two years. This year, Architecture for Humanity and Orient Global hosted the competition to bring the architecture, design, and engineering community together with students and teachers to envision the classroom of the future. After receiving over a thousand designs, each submission was rated on feasibility, sustainability, innovation in design, and overall design quality. Now, after four rounds, there are eight finalists and one of these will win in September. Check these designs out and tell us which is your favorite:
