Durkan to construct the most sustainable school in Britain

Berger Primary School in Hackney has gained a BREEAM Excellent rating, making it the most sustainable school in Britain when complete. The building design has scored 74.26%, this is the highest scoring ‘Excellent’ rating ever awarded to a school project.

Community Constructor Durkan are curently constructing the £8 million new primary school building in Hackney to hold 472 children. This is on behalf of The Learning Trust, a not-for-profit company, which runs all the education services for the London Borough of Hackney.

To achieve the ‘Excellent’ rating, Studio E Architects design incorporates Photovoltaic cells, small wind turbine and a green roof. The timber building structure has Programme for the Endorsement of the Forest Certification (PEFC), each 1m3 timber panel stores approximately 0.8 tonnes of carbon. The laminated timber panels were precision-engineered off-site (this is known as ‘glu-lam’ technology), then installed by the specialist manufacturer, Eurban in just under 12 weeks. Durkan ensured that gravel provided by our sub-contractors was sourced within a 30km radius of the site and have constructed an observation platform to enable school site visits at each important stage of construction.

In addition, all the existing areas of the school will be re-landscaped and a new multi-use games area will be constructed. There will be 15 additional classrooms, however the internal design allows for additional screening/partitioning of classrooms to increase the number of classrooms to suit the schools needs.

Robert Clark, Managing Director, Durkan Limited comments, Durkan are always utilising new technologies to improve to a buildings environmental performance. We are committed to giving pupils at Berger School the best environment to learn in, but were also conscious of our responsibility to the environmental impact of the new school.

The project is due for completion in May 2010.