45% of USD schools were built between 1950 and 1969. Built when energy was cheap and plentiful, these buildings were designed to warehouse children with teachers lecturing students seated in desks neatly in rows. Can this vast inventory be salvaged? Can we create energy efficient, 21st century learning environments within the framework of these existing structures? Or must we demolish them, waste the embodied carbon and build new.
Buckley Elementary School is the first of three 1950’s schools in Manchester, CT, that are undergoing intensive renovations. Learn how this adaptive reuse project has created a 21st century learning environment and is leading the way as the first zero energy public school in Connecticut, while minimizing its carbon footprint.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Integrating the Owner’s overall sustainability mission into a successful project.
- Understand how to incorporate net-zero energy strategies and a 21st-century educational program into an existing school.
- What are the operational implications to a new zero school?
- Understand the implications of embodied carbon in new vs renovation projects.