'De Zande' Youth Institution Beernem
Frank Mulier, principal community institute for special education ‘De Zande’
Students are surprised this building is for them and they get lectures here. Most students who arrive here are really fed up with school. Thanks to this system we get their attention, as they were fed up with school, but not with learning.
A special choice is that we don't have corridors inside of the school building. It's simple: A long, straight corridor is like a motorway and leads to speed. Speed leads to aggression. So, no corridors. Next to that, nobody takes responsibility for a corridor. In such a huge building it's always dirty. So, we don't waste energy on that. The corridors are on the outside.
Jo Baecke, architect
This building is special as it's built following the passive house concept. You should know that energy consumption for heating in a passive house is a lot lower than in an ordinary, traditional house or building. As far as heating is concerned, we're talking about percentages of 10 to 15% of the traditional consumption. As far as lighting is concerned, we have to take into account that 60% of the energy costs should be sufficient.
Geert De Bruyn, Office Cenergie
This school's energy consumption amounts to only one tenth of what you'd expect. How did we get there? First of all, with good insulation. We insulated 30 cm in the walls, 40 cm underneath the roof and even 15 cm in the floors. A good insulation and the windows don't have double, but triple glazing.
Voice over
But insulation costs money, sometimes a lot of money.
Jo Baecke, architect
As far as building costs are concerned, that means an additional 15 to 18% compared to a traditional school building.
Geert De Bruyn, Office Cenergie
But you'll earn that money back after 13 to 15 years. Thanks to our insulation and ventilation our heat demand has decreased. The passive profits, the people who work here, to students who come here, the machines and lighting, they all give off heat. They form the passive profits. Those passive profits almost completely compensate the total losses.
We also use the passive solar energy. It's the middle of October, so we want to make use of the solar energy. The blinds are now set up to let in the sunlight. In summer, we change that and block the sun, because then it's hot enough.
When insulating the building it was also made windproof. An automatic ventilation system and heat recuperation guarantee good air quality. In the ceiling we can see the surface is perforated. That's intentional. The cold ventilation stream runs over the dropped ceiling at night and cools the concrete. And if that concrete has cooled down at night, it can absorb a lot more heat, which avoids rising temperatures in here.
True, a building like this is more difficult to construct, but I expect a lot of schools to follow this example in future.