Green schools cost less

"We have noted the ever-increasing levels of energy prices and the share of these costs in our budgets and have decided that we have to focus on very high energy requirements for planned buildings," says Marcin Piotrowski, the leader of Marki town council. The school, on ul. Wspólna, will be the first building to comply with these high energy norms. "The architectural concept, which was chosen in a competition, was created on the drawing boards of the CJK Pracownia Architektury i Designu Piotr Kuś architectural studio. The whole complex will have an area of 17,000 sqm and will comprise a secondary school for 800 schoolchildren, a sixth form college for 400 students, a town library, a sports hall with a swimming pool and spa complex, sports infrastructure and a new road layout. "We are hoping that the construction work will start at the beginning of next year and will take app. 18-24 months. The net value of the project is estimated at around PLN 54 mln and is to be financed with the aid of a bond flotation of the Mareckie Inwestycje Miejskie municipal SPV company, which will manage the complex in the future," announces Marcin Piotrowski.

Because costs count
The use of environmentally-friendly solutions in the construction industry has partly been imposed by European Union legislation and partly results from the need to save money on future energy consumption - not to mention to care for the environment. "The planned complex will be friendly to our town's budget in the future. The initial calculations are that the operating costs of both educational and recreational buildings (the sports hall and the swimming pool) will amount to around PLN 400,000 per year. This is a pioneering project and probably one of the first enterprises of its type in Europe," declares Marcin Piotrowski of Marki town council. Such striving for perfection in the construction of facilities that virtually do not need any external sources of energy is not an easy task. "The challenge for this project is to combine the parameters of a building that is optimal for teaching in terms of the need for natural light, together with low carbon dioxide emissions. Article 9 of European Union Directive 2010/31/EU states that starting from 2018 all public buildings should have close to zero energy consumption," points out Piotr Kuś, an architect working with CJK Pracownia Architektury i Designu. Is such a target even possible? "In our considered opinion, given the current level of technology there is simply no possibility of designing such a large sports facility with a complex of swimming pools at the construction cost specified under the conditions of the competition. Nevertheless, thanks to the technologies we have applied we have managed to design a complex whose annual energy consumption costs will be several times lower than other facilities of this type," says architect Piotr Kuś.

However, the school in Marki will not be the first educational centre with such a strong emphasis on ecological solutions. Work on the second stage of the private American School in Konstancin-Jeziorna, just to the south of Warsaw, has recently been finished by the general contractor of the project, Skanska. The extension was carried out in compliance with the American LEED certification system. It has been equipped with a CO2 monitoring system in case the concentration of the gas exceeds permissible levels, while rainwater will be used for sanitary purposes to reduce the consumption of tap water. A light control and optimisation system has also been installed, as well as a wind turbine for generating energy. The building also includes solar panels used for heating up water and a biomass boiler. It features a "green roof" on top of the building that includes water tanks.