lowrise
Independence High School auditorium in Frisco, Texas.
By Cameron Ware
YOUR
TYPICAL PARENT WANTS TO SEND THEIR CHILD TO A SCHOOL THAT OFFERS A SAFE ENVIRONMENT AND PROVIDES AN ACADEMIC ADVANTAGE. IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING THAT FAMILIES SEEKING TO RELOCATE ARE LOOKING FOR NEIGHBORHOODS WITH THESE SCHOOLS. To meet this demand, school districts want to provide safer than the norm schools and man them with the best teachers. Consequently, architects seeking to win school design work are improving their offering by designing safer and more energy efficient schools. Ultimately, to the school district, energy efficiency means cost savings and new dollars that they can earmark to hire better teachers. Architects and engineers are challenged with a plethora of design scenarios to choose among and must carefully analyze data representing many choices and options. Architect Kenneth Taft says, “When an architect evaluates material and construction analysis it’s difficult not to conclude that Insulated Concrete Form (ICF) is superior in all of the most important criteria.” This is a big claim so let’s break it down a bit as it applies to ICF: ENERGY EFFICIENCY As green technology advances, designers are incorporating better windows and doors, geothermal heating and cooling, stronger and more efficient wall and roof systems as well as a multitude of other green products. Just a few years ago, they were skeptical of the ICF value proposition but surprisingly, the
incorporation of ICF has provided better than expected energy efficiency results. Why are ICFs performing better than expected? Architects and engineers have historically assigned a relatively low value of about 16% to heat gain and loss associated with walls. Understandably, it was assumed that walls could never contribute more than this value to the envelope. However, huge advances and improvements in roof design, air infiltration, reflective barriers, and better windows and doors have moved attention to the walls. Basically, the status quo thermally weak school wall design is a problem. Walls, in effect have become the weakest link in the chain since they previously have not received much in the way of technological advancement. This evidence is documented by significant differences in the energy performance of ICF schools over schools constructed using other wall technologies such as insulated steel and masonry block (CMU). Actual energy consumed per square foot per year (kBTU) clearly shows ICF schools performing better than schools built with other systems. For example, ONCOR’s energy report shows Burleson ISD as the top performing school district. February 2016 • Concrete Homes
5