Council Rock School District’s Holland Middle School Project Achieves LEED Gold & Ace Grant
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has awarded Council Rock School District’s (CRSD) Holland Middle School project a LEED Gold Certification and an Ace Grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. From the very beginning of the planning process, the intent was to transform the existing 1970s building into a contemporary 21st century learning facility. Through the tremendous effort of the CRSD, SCHRADERGROUP (SG) and consultants, and D’Huy Engineering, this amazing transformation is complete.
LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), is one of the most recognizable green building certification programs worldwide. SG assisted D’Huy Engineering in applying for this two-million-dollar ACE grant for sustainable technologies for use in the Holland Middle School design. With that grant secured, the middle school was designed with creative, viable, cost effective solutions with a goal of achieving LEED Gold Certification. Holland Middle School achieving LEED Gold Certification indicates how the new design features add energy efficiency and sustainability to the facility.
Holland Middle School’s sustainable design features include an introduction of copious daylighting throughout the facility, new windows in the new exterior skin of the building, and increased insulation to the entire building envelope. All general-purpose lighting throughout the facility and on the site is LED, for maximum energy savings, and a photovoltaic system back-feeds into the main service to supplement building energy demands.
With the intent to incorporate the needs of the community into the design, the SG team created new adjacency to allow for community access. The site was modified to create separate bus and parent drop off. The “front” of the building, originally facing a side parking lot, was reoriented to face Holland Road by means of a new front entry and connector lobby sequence. A new Performing Arts Complex was also added to supplement the building program.
SG is proud to have had the opportunity to partner with the Council Rock School District, to design a LEED Gold certified learning environment.
To learn more about Holland Middle School’s sustainable facility, click here.