North Shore Community School Expands, Sustainably

North Shore Community School recently celebrated their new addition with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, attended by TKDA Project Manager, Brian Morse and Project Architect Greg Cooper. The charter School, sponsored by Wolf Ridge, emphasizes environmental stewardship and hands-on exploration of the natural world. The 10,000 square foot school addition was designed to LEED silver standards and includes four classrooms, an art lab, greenhouse, restrooms, small conference rooms, and support spaces. The mechanical system design included high-efficiency HVAC equipment with displacement demand-ventilation, geothermal heat pumps and low flow plumbing fixtures. Occupancy sensors and daylight harvesting sensors monitor the amount of daylighting in the room and control the LED light fixtures accordingly, significantly reducing energy consumption. In addition, each classroom will use a small passive solar system located along their south-facing windows to harvest heat gained during the day to be released when temperatures drop overnight. TKDA developed an energy model to obtain a 20% energy savings over a conventional code-compliant building.