Every aspect of this school is purpose-built with a focus on green architecture
The Redding School of the Arts in Redding, Calif., is an excellent environmental educational example. The design of the school-and the entire learning campus-stresses the built environment should do two things. First, create opportunities to show students, parents and teachers that sustainability is a part of each day; and second, that creative, colorful-and perhaps most important-fun surroundings can inspire students to learn. It is the first full school (not an addition) in the world to receive platinum certification under LEED for Schools 2009 standards. The school earned LEED Platinum certification in 2012 for incorporating conservation into the building. It also received a Design Excellence Award in 2012 from the American Institute for Architects for its combination of indoor and outdoor learning spaces.
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Metal success
Metal plays a big part in the school’s success. “We were looking for metal panels with recycled content, durability and an energy-friendly solar reflective index value (SRI),” says James Theimer, principal of Redding-based Trilogy Architecture • Urban Design • Research, who served as architect for the project. “Redding School of the Arts has been designed to last for 100 years.” Louisville, Ky.-based Metal Sales Manufacturing Corp. provided the metal panels to achieve these goals.
All of the Metal Sales panel colors used on the school are listed with Energy Star, improving energy efficiency and reducing the amount of energy needed for cooling. The panels’ long life span will endure the wide temperature variations of the Sacramento Valley, are 100 percent recyclable and contain a high percentage of recycled material-all contributing to LEED points.
“One of the things we like about metal roofs, which we use a lot of in our projects, is that they are so good as a waterproof membrane,” Theimer says. “They also gave us the option of having a cool roof, which from an energy perspective was a very big positive for our energy use because of the reflectivity and the non-absorption of heat from the sun.”
The school’s roof is protected by 520 squares of Metal Sales’ Magna-Loc pencil rib standing seam roof panels, much of which has rigid photovoltaic (PV) solar panels attached to the panel ribs. An additional 12 squares of Magna-Loc flat pan panels are utilized on a nearby utility building and act as an ideal roof surface for the application of PV laminate film solar panels. The exterior walls of the building re clad in 138 squares of Metal Sales’ IC72-Panel.
“The standing seam roof helped to qualify for Cool Roof ratings and was an ideal substrate for the rigid and laminate PV panels that were installed,” says the school’s installer, Matt Ludlow, project manager, Kodiak Roofing & Waterproofing Co., Lincoln, Calif. “We also provided perforated Metal Sales’ TL-17 soffit flush face interior panels that were used as display boards for the students’ artwork. This building is designed to be a net zero energy facility.”
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California climate
The school took full advantage of the California climate. “We used two different types of solar panels,” Theimer says. “The client wanted the building to be a teaching tool to show children how green buildings affect their life and the health of the planet. The two different systems show two different ways to get the same goal.” The school used Uni-Solar (now Florham Park, N.J.-based BASF Corp.’s) PVL-68 PV laminate modules and Huntington Beach, Calif.-based Sharp Solar’s 230W monocrystalline photovoltaic modules.
The building’s rainwater-harvesting system is designed so 100 percent of the building’s irrigation water is provided by rain water. Its metal roof is a platform that makes that happen, but climate had to be considered. The building’s location is in a region called a “wet desert.”
“We have five months of rain a year and the rest of the time it’s pretty dry,” Theimer says. “Because of the nature of the region, we have to collect all of our water in five months. Rain runs through a small filtration system and into a massive underground storage tank that holds 175,000 gallons of water. Then, as needed, it is pumped into the landscape.
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“Schools use irrigation because they have large playground green areas, more than office buildings that generally don’t have a large green area. Also, in many schools there is a 10,000-gallon tank, which is more of a tool to show how to store and reuse water. In our school, it actually was a significant component of being able to provide all of the water for the irrigation; we went big.”
When the metal roof system was designed, a low-slope roof was chosen so there wouldn’t be water infiltration. “That’s one of the things I like about metal roofs,” Theimer says. “That also provided the right angle for us to mount the solar panels. Basically, just clipping the panels onto the roof created our solar energy and it was very effective.”
To accommodate all of this, Ludlow stresses very intricate waterproofing and metal flashing had to be installed. Also, “There were some areas of the roof where you had three or four different roof slopes all tying into the same valley areas. We had some very cut-up areas where we installed wall panels on both the inside and the outside of the same wall.” Heavy-gauge downspouts-fabricated from schedule 40 pipe that were welded and then post-hot-dip-galvanized-will allow the building to stand the test of time.
Green results
One of the requirements of LEED certification is monitoring performance. Theimer has been monitoring the school’s energy and water usages on a daily basis for the past two and a half years since it has been open. From this monitoring, one noticeable red flag arose from the building’s inhabitants’ happiness with it.
“We tried to find out why more energy was being used than what the computer model had originally predicted,” Theimer says. “We went back and did an on-site investigation. The teachers weren’t leaving at the end of the day. They were staying. When interviewed, they said they really liked the school’s environment and that it was a more comfortable place for them to do their work than at home. At 6 p.m. the school was still generating electricity because employees were staying in the building.”
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The Redding School of the Arts, Redding, Calif.
Owner and developer: The McConnell Foundation, Redding
Architect: Trilogy Architecture • Urban Design • Research, Redding
General contractor: Gifford Construction, Redding
Installer: Kodiak Roofing & Waterproofing Co., Lincoln, Calif.
Photovolatics installer: Solar Design Associates, Harvard, Mass.
Metal wall panels: Metal Sales Manufacturing Corp., Louisville, Ky., www.metalsales.us.com
Photovoltaics: Uni-Solar (now BASF Corp.), Florham Park, N.J., www.basf.com, and Sharp Solar, Huntington Beach, Calif., www.sharpusa.com/SolarElectricity.aspx
Roof clamps: S-5!, Colorado Springs, Colo., www.s-5.com