Colin Powell Middle School
Project of the Year: K-12 Education
Elementary School District 159 in south suburban Matteson, Ill., wanted a middle school for students from four communities.
Goals included creating a contemporary environment for students and promoting transparency and daylight, openness to community and a connection to nature.
The location was an undeveloped, 36-acre site that included on pond on the west. The site is adjacent to the village hall noted for its sustainable elements.
The result is a 122,000-sq-ft middle school that combines high-performance technologies and programmatic sensitivity.
Three classroom wings connect to an enrichment core that includes a band/choir room, learning resource center, cafetorium, practice gym and competition gym seating up to 1,500 people.
An open plan responds to natural surroundings and maximizes solar collection. Key interior spaces and transparent corridors wrap two outdoor courtyards, and they bring daylight into the building, provide a secure outdoor space and simplify navigation.
The triangular classroom wings respond to site features, solar patterns and internal/external views. Internally, each wing uses an outdoor color—blue=sky; green=grass; yellow=prairie flowers—to ease navigation and promote a sense of identity.
Has Geothermal System
A unique feature is a geothermal system that will use the earth’s constant temperature to heat the school in winter and cool it in the summer.
The system uses a compressor-based heat pump, loop with refrigerant and water and air-delivery system. The heat pumps in the building circulate the refrigerant-and-water mix via a loop of polyethylene pipe placed in the pond.
In the winter, when warming is needed inside, the system takes heat from the earth, transfers it to the refrigerant and distributes it into the structure via forced air. Cooling in the summer is achieved by taking heat from the structure, transferring it to the loop fluid and dissipating it in the pond.
The system benefits the environment over conventional HVAC because natural gas, a fossil fuel, is not being burned to generate heat. The estimate is that the geothermal system will cut energy costs 20% compared with a conventional HVAC system.
The pond was 1.5 acres and 8 ft deep—not large enough to support a geothermal system. As a result, it was widened to 3.3 acres and deepened to 18 ft.
In addition to geothermal, the school features a daylight harvesting system with strategically located windows, solar shades and light shelves. They bring light to about 90% of the facility’s interior.
Jury Comments: “This school is pretty nice. It has great architecture. The geothermal system is forward thinking. Students will learn from this.”
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