Saving planet school for all

Project

299064

Status

Submitted

Award category

You want to submit

NEW EUROPEAN BAUHAUS AWARDS: existing completed examples

Project title

Saving planet school for all

Full project title

Description

This new school is built on an abandoned urban area. By reusing this abandoned area, the school demonstrates a practical approach to social sustainability, not only as an excellent green building. It's a pilot project with the aim of encouraging a holistic approach towards circular economy principles to ensure the building design responds to environmental protection, health and well-being, and create a sense of community. 

What was the geographical scope of your project?

Does your project address mainly urban or rural issues?

Does your project refer to a physical transformation of the built environment or other types of transformations?

Has your project benefited from EU programmes or funds?

Has your project won an EU prize?

Your project is fully completed?

When was your project implemented?

How did you hear about the New European Bauhaus Prizes ?

On whose behalf are you submitting the application?

Please provide a summary of your project

Since the beginning, the decision of the municipality was made to reuse the existing site for a school with zero land consumption by redeveloping the abandoned urban area and replacing three old army barracks built in 1950 with the new middle-school.

This school building excellence is the result of the ambitious commitment of Pesaro municipality to preserve the environment and tackle climate change.The City of Pesaro has refocused the mandate of local construction on efficiency, sustainability, and responsibility.

In 2017, the City of Pesaro launched a pilot project with the aim of encouraging a holistic approach towards circular economy principles to ensure the building design responds to environmental protection, health and wellbeing and other social considerations

The ambition of Pesaro City is to accelerate the transition towards a circular economy, enabling construction firms to use a new system beyond the current outdated ‘take-make-dispose’ model and contribute to mainstreaming the circular economy concept within and outside the city. Instead of taking a traditional approach to developing works procurement, the city decided to adopt a more circular approach which would be to build a sustainable new school using the current asset, being the abandoned area. The intent is to optimise circularity and enhance the use of sustainable building material and technologies, save raw materials and minimise waste from the construction of the building

The analysis of not only educational needs but also citizens expectations is the central theme: to make the building more circular in terms of its functionality and make sure that it can be used by everyone all day, every day to become a wonderful community space for all the citizens. The general opinion is that this school creates an environment friendly space where all the final users are aware of being part of a community and can understand how it is important the relationship between the human being and the environment

Please indicate the main themes of your project with 5 key words

Please give information about the key objectives of your project in terms of sustainability (including circularity) and how these have been met.
Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context

The building provides the first concrete example in mainstreaming circular practices in public procurement. The project is successful because it achieves the goal of a building that is extraordinary in every sustainable environmental certification scheme evaluation area and the records achieved are the confirmation of this approach. The innovativeness of this project is to take into practice circular principles within the public procurement process and ensure that the procedure runs efficiently and obtains the expected results based on environmental and social requirements.

This project also demonstrates that the Green Public Procurement process where environmental requirements are made mandatory within the tendering process using predetermined award criteria is essential for delivering environmental social value, influencing the market towards sustainable materials and products, whilst also improving new skills on green jobs.

The call for tender describes technical specifications and provides measurable requirements against which the tenders can be evaluated. Performance-based criteria describe the expected results and which outputs are mandatory. In the case of this project, two criteria were selected as mandatory: (a) obtaining a nZEB school and (b) providing the environmental energy certification using the LEED certification scheme, achieving at a minimum, the LEED Gold certification.

As a result, the tender includes technical specification on energy efficiency, product lifecycle, waste management, water efficiency, with attention paid to internal comfort to create the best indoor environmental conditions for the students and teachers. It is relevant not only the energy consumption reduction but also the indoor quality for the students and staff through better acoustics, air quality and thermal comfort requirements. These results are guaranteed by the LEED v4BD+C with the score of 88 points.

Please give information about the key objectives of your project in terms of aesthetics and quality of experience beyond functionality and how these have been met.
Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context

The intent of design is to optimise circularity. The analysis of not only educational needs but also citizens expectations for use was the central theme: to make the building more circular in terms of its functionality and make sure that it can be used by everyone all day, every day. To respond to these needs, the entrance is a big hall to encourage circulation and interaction, so people can meet others and stay to chat. To optimize space, this big hall has been planned as a mixed-use space that can be used like a conference hall by teachers and citizens like. The design of the circulation pattern itself encourages people to sit down and use the circulation space. The shape and position of the building was studied and orientated to best exploit solar radiation and optimize the free solar gains and natural lighting and shading, thus optimising passive design considerations

The coloured façade is composed of a modular system of porcelain stoneware and finished with earthy colours introducing a smoothly playful dash of colour in the streetscape. The characteristic colour provides a strong and recognizable identity and establishes the school as a playful, eye-catching beacon for this vibrant neighbourhood

The shape and the position of the windows create an amazing relationship between outdoor and indoor space without seamless perception of space to improve well-being as well as improve psychological outcomes such as moods, feelings and positive attitudes towards learning and teaching.

The walls of the classroom are made by glass, and this allow to create a sense of community among students that belong to different courses. Such use of the windows and the glass-walls enable also to get the best environment thanks to the artificial and natural lighting control.

By opting for a compact volume, the design was managed to minimize the footprint and avoid further densification of the neighbourhood and provide ample outdoor playground for the children with sport facilities.

Please give information about the key objectives of your project in terms of inclusion (equal opportunities, public participation, citizen engagement, co-design, universal design, accessibility, affordability, etc.) and how these have been met.
Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context

Residents' meetings were held to base the project not only on end users' demands but also on residents. Teachers and students were involved in the design planning of the outdoor area, and teachers in the design planning for achieving the educational goals. Therefore, a library is available not only to the school, but to the entire community, the canteen is scheduled to be used by children from the nearby primary school. Questions have been posed to teachers, students, school assistants, and parents to obtain feedback. All stakeholders appreciate the brightness of the natural and artificial light as desired; the acoustic comfort is due to any background noise in the classrooms or any noise disturbance from outdoors; the thermal comfort is tailor-made in every classroom thanks to the sensors and the view of the park surrounding the school

The students appreciate the glass walls of the classrooms that allow them to see into other classrooms that generates a sense of community. What is most appreciated is the airflow quality, which is achieved by mechanical filtered ventilation with a CO2 sensor to ensure greater indoor air quality while also lowering the danger of contagion. The common consensus is that this school foster an environmentally friendly atmosphere in which children may be taught on sustainability, become aware of their role in a community, and comprehend the importance of the human-environment interaction. The project was created by a team of technicians who each brought their own set of experiences and skills to the table. The building phase was carried out in the same manner, with each step's results being monitored. Meetings were held on the construction site with the Chamber of Architects and Engineers to share and disseminate the lessons learned

The usage of current assets and the construction cost of 1.300€/mq demonstrate that adopting a more circular approach to developing works procurement enables sustainability to be feasible and affordable

Please explain how these three dimensions have been combined in your project.
Please highlight how this approach can be exemplary

Sustainability, aesthetics and inclusion are combined as the project strives to reconcile affordable, functional and aesthetically pleasing public and private spaces with sustainability outcomes. The project aims at translating the core principles of sustainability, aesthetics and inclusion to  users at large, in everyday life in the collective pursuit of green transformation. As the building is a school built on an abandoned urban area, it has a very important role also in terms of social sustainability, not only as an excellent green building. All these aspects have had an impact on the volume and layout of the project and are reflected in the architectural expression. Already the facade, with its porcelain stoneware cladding, green roof and integrated solar panels, expresses the ecological character of the project.

This building excellence is the result of the ambitious commitment of Pesaro municipality to preserve the environment and tackle climate change. The City of Pesaro has refocused the mandate of local construction on efficiency, sustainability, and responsibility.

The nickname given to this school by students, the ‘saving planet school’, demonstrates that it is an excellent and concrete example how to achieve sustainability. Because of the interactions and sense of community that the spaces foster, there is greater transparency and engagement, resulting in barriers that have been overcome, making the school more inclusive and accessible to all.

Please give information on the results/impacts achieved by your project in relation to the category you apply for

The Brancati school got three first: the highest scoring “Schools” energy environmental certification in Europe; the third highest scoring “Schools” energy environmental certification in the world out of 1,733 certifications in LEED system and the highest scoring v4 “Schools” certification in the world.

All the community needs were transformed into technical criteria and tested by the certification process.

In addition to LEED Platinum certification with the score of 88 points, it was achieved the nZEB standard thanks to the energy efficiency envelope, the highly efficient HVAC and light system and the green roof combined with the rooftop photovoltaic system to reduce the school’s carbon footprint. The friendly monitoring system installed helps the users to reach the minimum consumption.

Most of the materials used are provided with EPD certifications.

It was also organized the material management system in the construction site by selective in-situ storage of deconstruction waste and selective collection of all packing and processing waste. As part of the mandatory requirements of the call for tender, it was also mandatory to take all materials to the recycling centres and to submit the certifications providing both the quantities taken to the recycling centres and the quantity recycled and recovered achieving a 98% recovered waste.

The school is also equipped with separate collection bins for paper, metal, plastic and glass.

Two local recycling centres were involved: a centre for the recovery of inert materials from deconstruction, which, using primary and secondary mills obtain a multiplicity of grain sizes for different uses in construction and road works, and a material storage centre for re-use of recovery of paper and collection of iron and plastic.

Much was done to optimize the design in air quality, so today it is also possible to guarantee comfort, safety, and security excellent conditions.

Please explain how citizens and civil society were involved in the in the design and/or implementation of the project.
Please also explain the benefits that derived from their involvement.

In the building process various categories of stakeholders were involved such as:

• GSE (Energy Services Management)
• Green Building Council Italia (GBC Italia)
• Professional orders
• Construction sector companies
• Trade associations
• Recycling centers and their administration

in addition to students, teachers, citizens and parents already mentioned. This project demonstrates that involving all parties from design and raw materials suppliers to end users, service providers and recyclers, including the associated information flows are crucial to develop and implement circular economy principles. This cannot just simply happen; it needs to be planned and all stakeholders need to be involved in committing to a shared goal. Involving all the parties of the process is a key factor to be successful and develop new opportunities in terms of new green jobs, enhance innovative energy transition solutions and give them a better understanding of the challenges presented by the circular economy and more responsible use of our resources.

The integrative design process developed by designers, LEED consultants and contractors upgrade focused also on energy efficiency, water management, outdoor spaces sustainability and social sustainability goals, but comfort indoor was the most relevant issue.

This project proves how to be effective in reducing vulnerability and rebuilding live-hoods in urban context. As the education needs have been incorporated into the project evaluation and assessment process, citizens and civil society are able to replicate and operate the resulting systems and technologies on the basis of the lesson learnt.

Please explain what kind of global challenges the project addressed by providing local solutions

This building is a tangible example that we can build sustainable buildings spending as much as to build a traditional building. The cost of this school building is 1.300€/mq and GHG emissions are equal to 9,66 kg/mq/year. Referring to the SDGs this project particularly addressed:

n.3: achieving the best environment for teaching and learning

n.5: empowering women for the leadership of the project

n.6: reduction of water consumption and with the rain-water collection tank for the maintenance of the green roof.

n.7: the only energy used for the building needs is provide by PV panel on the roof.

n.8: This project promoted higher levels of productivity and technological innovation and encouraged entrepreneurship and job creation in the industry sector.

n.9: This project is innovative in that this is the first project that used the Minimum Environmental Criteria in the call for tender with clear requirements.

n.11: the project is part of the Council strategy with the aim to make the city of Pesaro resilient

n.12: achieving economic growth and sustainable development requires that we urgently reduce our ecological footprint by changing the way we produce and consume goods and resources. This project is a concrete example that we can do it together.

The environmental impacts are improved by the tendering process to build a low energy concept school using good design to support not only passive technologies, but relevant active mechanisms as needed. Moreover, considering how green requirements will affect the procurement process for works and implementing them in line with the legal obligation, materials and methods of production are considered when defining appropriate selection criteria. As a result, the tender includes technical specification on energy efficiency, product life-cycle, waste management, water efficiency with attention paid to internal comfort to create the best indoor environmental conditions for all.

Please highlight the innovative character of the project as compared to mainstream practices in the field of the project.

This is the first Italian school project that approached the Green Public Procurement with a clear and ambitious request of LEED certification. As a result, the tender includes technical specification on energy efficiency, product life-cycle, waste management, water efficiency with attention paid to internal comfort to create the best indoor environmental conditions for the students and teachers. It is relevant not only in the energy consumption reduction but also the indoor quality for the students and staff through acoustics, air quality and thermal comfort requirements. To guarantee the achievement of the environmental requirements, the LEED certification was made mandatory by the procurement process. All these results are guaranteed by the environmental energy certification made mandatory in the tender notice and measured in accordance with the Minimum Environmental Criteria. The experiment was successful, and the records achieved are the confirmation of this. The tendering process can be replicated by other municipalities to obtain not only energy efficiency in buildings but above all to reduce the buildings’ carbon footprint. Already the project is designed to act as a catalyst for the whole neighborhood and its residents and be a tangible example how reaching sustainability.

Insert all these features as the crucial part of the requirements for tender, so the construction firms had to respond to these criteria as part of the bidding process, was the novel feature of the building process.

This process has been accredited in the UNI standards by the Italian Standardization Body UNI11821 as a model of circular economy that demonstrates the replicability of this process.

Please explain to the potential of transferring the projects’ results or learnings to other interested parties and contexts.
Please provide clear documentation, communication of methodology and principles in this context.

The project is successful because it achieves the goal of a building that is extraordinary in every sustainable LEED evaluation area and the records achieved are the confirmation of this. The tendering process can be replicated by other municipalities to obtain not only energy efficient buildings, but above all to reduce the buildings’ carbon footprint.

This project provides the first concrete example in mainstreaming circular practices in public procurement. The innovativeness of this project is to take into practice circular principles within the public procurement and ensure that the procedure runs efficiently and obtains the expected results based on environmental and social requirements.

This project also demonstrates that the Green Public Procurement process where environmental requirements are made mandatory within the tendering process using predetermined award criteria is essential for delivering environmental social value, influencing the market towards sustainable materials and products, improving new skills on green jobs.

The market could change radically if waste management were organised in such a way as to obtain a high percentage of recycled material or if it was mandatory to use EPD-certified materials. This could generate competition in the production of materials with the least possible environmental impact.

Moreover, such low impact building can arise the awareness on climate change among citizens and final users. Taking a holistic life cycle approach, this project provides clear evidence of how to foster ‘circular’ alternatives compared to linear, business as usual options in the management of public procurement.

Again, it shows that it is possible to drive the market towards a circular thinking and the circular design planning with a holistic approach based on stakeholder and needs analysis is the key for transitioning towards a circular built environment where social, economic and environment value are ensured by tendering process.

Is an evaluation report or any relevant documentation available?

If you would like to upload additional documentation, please upload it or write it below

By ticking this box, you declare that you are not in in one or more of the exclusion situations foreseen under Article 136 of the Financial Regulation.

By ticking this box, you declare that all the information provided in this form is factually correct, that you assume sole liability in the event of a claim relating to the activities carried out in the framework of the contest, that the proposed project has not been proposed for the New European Bauhaus Prizes 2022 in any other category or strand and that it has not been subject to any type of investigation, which could lead to a financial correction because of irregularities or fraud.

By submitting your application, you guarantee that you are the author or have the rights to proceed with the application and to authorise the use of the project, concept, idea, and that you have obtained any necessary consents, licenses or assignments from third parties and included copyright notices when necessary.

By submitting your application, you understand that all the applications that meet the eligibility requirements will be shared for the purposes of the selection processes, and notably published on the secured platform https://prizes.new-european-bauhaus.eu/ and for the purposes of the promotion of these on the New European Bauhaus website and/or other European Commission communication channels. In this sense, the applications would be widely available. Applicants should ensure that they present their ideas, concepts, projects, in such a way that they could be shared without giving rise to intellectual property related concerns. If your submission is selected as one of the finalists, it will additionally be shared for the purpose of the public vote that will take place. The European Union is granted a licence to use and share your application with the general public and the official external experts for the purposes of the selection process, including the voting. The European Union has the right to use the images and visual materials and the description provided in the application for communication purposes related to the contest and beyond. Rights granted comprise the right to store, reproduce, display, publish and communicate or distribute copies in electronic or digital format, including, but not only, through the internet. Unless you have disclosed your name, the European Commission has no obligation to share your name when using or disseminating your contribution to the public. The European Union cannot be held responsible in case any submitted idea, project, concept is found to infringe third parties rights. The European Union shall be neither responsible for the use that third parties may do of the applications or related content.