New School the Most Environmentally Friendly in District History

Earthmovers are set to break ground on the Chute Lake Elementary School this month. To this point, staff and architects have been working for more than a year to ensure that the new school meets the needs of students, melds with the Mission housing style, and incorporates environmental technologies while staying within budget. When the school is complete in 2009, Alan Cumbers, Director of Operations, expects it will be the ‘greenest’ school in the District.

The 6-acre school lot, which is located at the junction of Chute Lake Road, Lark Street and McCarren Avenue, is relatively small compared to other school properties. This posed a challenge to planners who wished to ensure children would have adequate playing fields. The solution was a two-storey design. The wood-frame building will feature a multipurpose room and plenty of natural light. Durable external building materials such as masonry tiles, brick and hardiplank will stand up well to vandalism and the natural elements.

Perhaps most exciting is what the building won’t be using: significant amounts of fossil fuels. To accomplish this, planners are incorporating the latest in two types of environmentally-friendly technology. First, geothermal pipes will run horizontally beneath the playing fields and baseball diamonds. Geothermal systems work by taking advantage of temperature differences between the soil and the atmosphere. In winter, the pipes, which are filled with liquid, gather warmth from deep in the soil and deliver it through a heat-pump system to the classrooms. In the warmer months, the soil is cooler than the air allowing the system to cool the building. “We have high expectations for what the geothermal can do and the potential to reduce energy costs,” says architect Nick Bevanda, whose firm is providing local support for KMBR Architects, Planners Inc., the Project Architects based in Vancouver. “The technology has improved significantly from even just five years ago.”

The second type of environmentally-friendly technology is solar energy. The school will use flexible solar panels on the roof. These panels are expected to generate energy even when there is some cloud cover. The optimal output from the panels is approximately 10kWatts per hour which is roughly equivalent to operating 100 standard light bulbs for one hour. All of the electricity produced by the solar panels will be used by the school to reduce utility costs.

Architect Nick Bevanda notes that the school is approaching LEED gold. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a measurement of the environmental nature of a building. There are different levels of certification: bronze, silver and gold.