DSSR was commissioned to design building services for the two school campuses, comprising 5 school facilities in total, as part of a project for West Lothian Council. We also provided building performance and sustainability studies for all 5 buildings across the project’s two sites, Calderwood and Winchburgh.

On the Calderwood site, there is a new £14.3m open-plan primary school, which was handed over to West Lothian Council in September 2021, and on the Winchburgh site, there are two high schools and one primary school (Holy Family).

The Secondary Schools share a sports building which features a swimming pool; this facility is also be available for use by the local community.

The schools feature a mix of photovoltaic panels and combined heat & power plant facilities, helping to reduce carbon emissions and energy usage. The Winchburgh campus has a central Energy Centre, serving all buildings on the site.

All school buildings within the campus have been designed to achieve an EPC A rating.

Energy Efficiency & Low-Carbon Solutions

In order to minimise energy consumption and associated carbon emissions, there was a focus on making the building fabric’s performance as efficient as possible. This included having U-values and air permeability rates specified well below the backstop values noted in the Technical Standards in order to minimise heat losses from the building. Glazing elements were also selected to limit solar gain and hence reduce cooling demands.

The building services have also been designed to help minimise energy usage and include features such as: LED lighting with automatic daylight & occupancy controls; high-efficiency heat reclaim on mechanical ventilation systems; the use of windcatchers in the Games Hall to minimise energy use while providing ventilation and free-cooling to the space; variable speed fans & pumps to reduce power consumption and the use of combined heat & power units to provide ‘free heat’ when generating electricity. The CHP units are particularly effective when they have a heating load throughout the summer months associated with the pool heating and related domestic hot water generation for showers.

There is also an extensive area of photovoltaic panels located on the roof of the building that generates significant quantities of electricity.

The Project

The Winchburgh campus has 4 No buildings, all served by centralised heating and power plant located within the Sports Building. The central plant was located here because the Sports Building has the most prolonged opening hours and also has high energy use associated with the swimming pool. This arrangement can therefore greatly assist efficient operation by allowing the CHP and PV plant that is sized to serve all four buildings to serve the Sports Building only when only it is operational.

The EPC for the building cannot achieve an A rating as per the other school buildings on the site due to the high energy use associated with the swimming pool and the longer operating hours. However, the efficiency of the building design is reflected in the figure of 31 kgCO2/m2/annum, compared to the Building Control compliance target of 43 kgCO2/m2/annum, ie a 38% improvement on Building Control requirements.

Project Architect: jmarchitects (Primary Schools) / Ryder (High Schools)