Montgomery School Passivhaus Certification

Montgomery Primary School, the first Passivhaus School in the UK, receives certification!

A milestone in the UK building industry was reached yesterday with the formal certification of the first Passivhaus schools in the UK.


Passivhaus Certificates were issued following the rigorous certification process carried out by Warm Low Energy Building Practice, accredited by the Passivhaus Institute in Germany as a UK Passivhaus Certifier. The three schools were:

• Montgomery Primary School in Exeter, commissioned by Devon County Council, designed by NPS and JPA, built by BAM Construction
  
• Bushbury Hills Primary School in Wolverhampton, commissioned by Wolverhampton City Council, designed by Architype and built by Thomas Vale Construction
  
• Oakmeadow Primary School in Wolverhampton, commissioned by Wolverhampton City Council, designed by Architype and built by Thomas Vale Construction
  

John Packer Associates’ building services engineers provided the mechanical and electrical design for Montgomery Primary School which was the first Passivhaus School to be completed in the UK in October 2011. The architecture, quantity surveying, CDM Coordination and landscape architecture were undertaken by our parent company, NPS.


Designing and constructing the first Passivhaus schools in the UK was a huge challenge for the design teams and contractors. Passivhaus is primarily a tough Quality Assurance standard, and it took tremendous rigour and attention to detail, during the design and construction process to achieve certification.


"There are many architects and contractors out there claiming that they are building to ‘Passivhaus principles’, but it is only going through this tough and formal Certification process that gives credibility to such claims. Many congratulations to Architype, Thomas Vale, NPS and BAM for putting themselves through this process, and for achieving certification - this is a huge achievement"

Pete Warm, director of Warm Low Energy Building Practice

Passivhaus can be achieved using different design approaches and types of construction and the approach of each design team was different. JPA with parent company NPS adopted a heavyweight concrete SIPS solution for Montgomery Primary School, and added photovoltaics to achieve a zero-carbon solution.


Devon County Council has undertaken to monitor the performance of Montgomery Primary School, and has funded a PhD study as a condition of the Zero Carbon Task Force grant. The schools are all being provided with ongoing occupant support via the innovative BSRIA Soft Landings scheme and are part of an ongoing monitoring programme. The teams have agreed to share and publish data for the benefit of the building industry, in order that the two different approaches to Passivhaus can be compared.



"Achieving Passivhaus at Montgomery Primary School had been a steep learning curve for all involved in the design and construction process. We are very grateful for the assistance given by Warm Low Energy Building Practice, David Coley of Bath University, the Zero-Carbon Task Force and Devon County Council in enabling us to develop what we believe is also the first ‘zero-carbon in use’ school in Europe"

Arthur Tatchell, Director of Architecture at NPS (Group) Exeter

Read more about the building services strategy at Montgomery Primary School.



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