School’s building lesson continues

THE VILLAGE Campus of Beaconhills College in Berwick is continuing to grow, with further development of a new environmentally friendly Year 9 Centre.
The Year 9 centre represents the eighth stage of development at the college’s village campus and the purpose of this facility is to provide for six multi-purpose classrooms, a lecture area, student amenities, office, administration, meeting and store rooms.
Designed to reduce the eco ‘footprint’ of the college, the new centre incorporates energy efficient construction solutions such as positioning the building on-site to achieve the best use of available light and minimising exposure to the prevailing weather conditions.
The building will incorporate double glazed windows, extensive ventilation systems, use of some recycled building materials, water and solar harvesting systems.
It will also include an extensive environmental monitoring and control system which looks at tracking the internal and external temperatures and managing the ventilation, heating and cooling systems.
The control system will also collate data on the energy being used to operate the building.
Beyond making the college an environmentally friendly place, it will also provide a learning platform for students and the wider community on environmentally sustainable design issues.