Project Outline

Oak Meadow Primary School is one of the 1st three primary schools in the UK to receive Passivhaus certification in February 2012. Designed and built to the rigorous Passivhaus standard the two-form entry primary school (420 children) also includes facilities for a local ‘Mast Agency Support Team’.

The building, orientated on an East-West axis has been modelled to meet the technical demands associated with Passivhaus, which has influenced every decision about form, design and detailing, whilst ensuring focus has remained on simplifying and optimising the design.

The school has been constructed from a simple and robust palette of materials including; timber cladding, zinc roofing, timber windows and doors externally, timber screens, natural linoleum, organic paints and stains internally. Architype have been providing a series of ‘soft landing’ sessions, easing the occupiers into the building operations and guiding them to achieve optimal use of the building.

The Design Aspirations and Key Principles

During the design development we aimed to:

• Express the warm, loving atmosphere of Oak Meadow School which has been so evident to us during the consultation
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• Enhance the school’s identity as a haven of security and calm in a city environment
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• Fulfill functional requirements within a careful zoning of uses
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• Create a dynamic range of stimulating spaces for teaching and learning
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• Achieve effective but unobtrusive security for children and staff
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• Ensure that the practical support and circulation spaces work simply and effectively
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• Create a delightful, airy and uplifting building made from natural, sustainable materials
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• Maximise natural daylight and ventilation, to create a healthy environment.

Building Design Concept

The massing of the building responds to surrounding historical agricultural grain, within a wider site boundary echoing the field boundary and ‘green corridor’ context of the previous occupation on the site. The proposed building sits within wider grass playing fields and grass ‘soft-play’ bounded by expanded and extended ‘green corridors’.

The proposed building form echoes the Saxon ‘Longhouse’ with an elongated footprint oriented East-West, with pitched roofs meeting centrally at the West elevation, expressing a central ‘circulation’ axis from which the majority of the accommodation is accessed.

All of the classrooms are oriented North-South (to maximise environmental control) with the majority facing due South. The elevational materiality reflects the educational and adult/service divide, along the East-West axis with a timber and glass clad more ephemeral Southern elevation ‘plugging’ into a solid timber Northern block, whilst maintaining a visual axis of transparency throughout.

Passivhaus Principles

This school has been designed from the outset to meet the energy standard, Passivhaus. This standard represents European best practice in terms of insulation and heating requirements, and also sets limits on total energy use and summer overheating. Passivhaus differs from zero carbon in that it primarily assesses the building fabric, rather than the fuel used. Passivhaus sets a finite limit on the heating energy demand; Oak Meadow uses some energy for heating, but only a tenth of typical new buildings. Given the low heating demand, and the focus on efficiency for lighting and computer use thats needed to meet the Passivhaus total energy requirement means the school meets the 60% carbon reduction target using gas heating and no renewable energy generation.