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Westmont High School Science Education Facility |
The Westmont High School Science Education Facility houses classrooms, laboratories, and support facilities for the Campbell Union High School District. The architect set out to design a building that was not only based on sustainable concepts, but that was also open to observation and study of those concepts by its student occupants. The building is designed to "show" how it is constructed and operates, seizing all student time in the facility as "teachable moments".
The building orientation is due north allowing south-side shading to reduce cooling loads and north facing clerestories to allow 100% daylighting on sunny days. One classroom was intentionally designed slightly askew to stimulate discussion of building orientation. Photocells sense ambient light levels and dim lights as daylight levels in the classrooms increase. Occupancy sensors automatically turn off lights if no motion is detected.
4000 square feet of photovoltaic panels on the roof generate up to 20 kW of electricity for the building and on low use days provide excess power to the rest of the campus. Exposed instrumentation shows real-time power generation including fluctuations from clouds passing overhead.
Radiant heating and cooling is achieved through water tubing run through the structural floor slab. Exposed manifolds in each room allow students to see entering and leaving temperature and flow rate of water going into each classroom's radiant floor.
Design Team:
Architect: CSS Architecture
Electrical Engineer/Lighting Designer: IDeAs
Mechanical Engineer: Rumsey Engineers
Awards:
Educational Design Excellence in American Schools and Universities
CHPS School - Coalition for High Performance Schools
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