Sustainable Design
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Designing for Sustainability
By implementing a Whole School Sustainability
framework which describes what successful green
schools have learned about how to make this
sustainability thinking stick. It explains that, in
these schools, the educational program, physical place and organisational culture all support
sustainability, and that each aspect of the school
does its important part in making the whole
picture work. The large majority of schools are built not to optimize health and comfort, but rather to achieve a minimum required level of design performance at lowest cost. Almost no schools are designed with the specific objective of creating healthy and productive study and learning environments. The financial savings can equate to 20 times as high as the cost of going green.
How much more do green schools cost?
Conventional schools are typically designed just to meet buildingcodes — that are often incomplete. Design of schools to meet minimum code performance tends to minimize initial capital costs but delivers schools that are not designed specifically to provide comfortable, productive, and healthy work environments for students and faculty. Few states regulate indoor air quality in schools or provide for minimum ventilation standards. Notsurprisingly, a large number of studies have found that schoolsacross the country are unhealthy — increasing illness and absenteeism and bringing down test scores.
The “green premium” is the initial extra cost to build a green building compared to a conventional building. Typically this cost premium is a result of more expensive (and sustainably-sourced) materials, more efficient mechanical systems, better design, modelling and integration, and other high performance features. Many school architects use a state or school district’s pre-determined budget as their metric for appropriate school cost. However in some cases green schools can be built on the same budget as a conventional school build.
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