A GROUND-BREAKING school in Burry Port is up for another award after already receiving three major architectural honours since its opening last September.
Welsh sustainability organisation Cynnal Cymru has shortlisted Burry Port Community Primary School for a Sustain Wales award in the Sustainable School category, which will be decided by public vote.
The eco-friendly school, delivered by WRW Ltd, was built as part of the council’s Modernising Education Programme, with part funding from the Welsh Government’s 21st Century Schools initiative.
Utilising a modular timber frame construction of sustainable Welsh timber, it is officially the first educational building in Wales the country to pass the stringent Passivhaus standard, owing to its super energy efficiency features.
It is home to children aged three to 11, and also incorporates a Flying Start nursery which includes a sensory garden space for the outdoor environment which was also the first of its kind in Wales.
The £3.8 million school, which opened in September last year, has already been recognised in the prestigious RIBA Architecture Awards 2016.
It won the RSAW Welsh Architecture Award, the RSAW Sustainability Award and Andrew Tidy, Projects Delivery Team Leader within the council’s Property Design section, won the RSAW Property Architect of the Year jointly with George Mikurcik of Architype Architects, who were involved with the project via the contractor.
Judges described the school as ‘a superb example of collaboration between the client, Carmarthenshire County Council, the architect, Archetype and the School, working together as one to achieve a high quality, inspirational educational environment for both the pupils and the staff and a source of aspiration to others’.
They added: “The design is innovative in so many ways… exuding a sense of calm and comfort, but it is clearly a place where it is easy to teach and learn, where the building itself is stimulation for the children.”
Passivhaus is simply an assured quality standard that guarantees building performance. It is an internationally recognised performance standard concentrated on achieving exceptional comfort levels and vastly reduced energy consumption. By virtue of this, Passivhaus buildings can add significant value to the project whole life cost, and post occupancy studies in England are already beginning to demonstrate growing evidence that Passivhaus Schools are delivering upon these core aims in practice. This focussed approach to building physics – through invoking superior levels of thermal comfort – also helps to facilitates first class indoor environmental performance, and in doing so support the greater enhancement of pupil attainment.
The 2016 Cynnal Cymru Awards look for outstanding examples that help to deliver the seven national goals of the Well-being of Future Generations Act, contributing to the environmental, social, cultural and economic sustainability of life in Wales.
To vote, visit www.cynnalcymru.com/sustainable-school-2016/ by October 28.
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