Teachers at Hood River Middle School in Oregon had already established a curriculum that incorporated sustainable concepts, so when a bond was passed to build new music and science classrooms at their school, they knew exactly what they wanted to do: use the new building as a ‘teaching tool’ that would illustrate sustainable ideas put into practice.

Opsis Architecture began the process with an eco-charrette that included teachers, students, designers and engineers. Together they set goals for creating a building that was net-zero in both water and energy use. While constrained by a modest budget, they also wanted to use sustainable design techniques to help building users understand how the systems work and how their actions are a critical component in the building’s use of resources.

Students get hands-on experience growing food to sell at a farmer’s market and budget energy use from on-site solar collection.

The new building incorporates not only a new music room, practice rooms, teacher offices and a science lab but also includes a greenhouse where students will learn with hands-on activities. The curriculum will include growing plants using a ‘living machine’ that recycles nutrient-rich wastewater from fish tanks for irrigation. Outside the greenhouse, students will tend a seasonal garden, native plants, and orchard trees to grow fruits and vegetables that they will sell to their community at an on-site farmers market. To further strengthen the bond between school and community, local organizations will also be able to share the building and site facilities, such as the music room and adjacent outdoor amphitheater, when the school is not using them.

In addition to the integration of sustainable technologies, remaining sensitive to the context of the National Historic registered site is a high priority for the project. The site includes this 1927 historic structure.

The project sits at the foot of a 1927 National Historic Register building and will respond to this context through its use of similar brick and formal expression. The brick veneer surrounds ICF (insulated concrete formwork) walls. These, along with the R-38 roof insulation, below-slab insulation, and triple-glazed windows, provide an airtight and well-insulated building envelope with good thermal mass to serve as a buffer against outdoor temperature swings. Sections of the wall and floor assemblies are exposed so that students can see how they work. Students will also be able to observe reused and recycled building elements such as the wood scissor trusses. The trusses were salvaged from a 1940s era bus storage barn that was torn down to make room for the new building.

A bus storage barn that used to occupy the new building’s site was taken apart piece by piece. Many of these materials set aside in the deconstruction will be used in the new building, and 98 percent of all of the materials from the barn will be re-used or recycled.

The goal of the project is to meet net-zero energy by producing as much energy as the building uses. To reach this goal, energy savings and production measures include geothermal heating; cooling using heat exchange with water from an adjacent stream; a radiant slab; heat recovery ventilators using displacement air distribution; and a plenum that sits under the 35 kilowatt solar panel system, simultaneously preheating air for the building and cooling the panels to make them more efficient.

The design team also performed daylighting studies to reach an ideal combination of translucent skylights, monitor windows, traditional windows, and deciduous vines on trellis shading devices. Together, these elements create an even distribution of daylight in classrooms and allow electric lights to be shut off much of the time. 

Precast concrete ornamentation, including a built-in sundial on the new building, will blend with the character of the existing building’s terra cotta ornament.

But the final key to conservation will be the building’s users. Part of the curriculum at the school will include managing a resource budget and tracking the building’s performance through a ‘building dashboard’--a website that tracks energy use and production, water use and collection, and weather conditions. In addition, the natural ventilation system is designed with a simple user interface to encourage students to think about how they interact with the built environment.

The building will collect rainwater for use in toilets and for irrigation, combined with low-flow and waterless plumbing fixtures. Stormwater treatment will be done on-site using a bioswale with native planting. While the net-zero water goal could not be met due to regulations prohibiting on-site wastewater and potable water treatment, inquiries by the design team have prompted regulators to re-examine their policies.  

Working collaboratively with the administration and students to set ambitious goals early on, the team was able to achieve a design that will truly help the community’s next generation move toward a more sustainable future.

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