Lessons in green architecture

Photography Karl Rogers

The new Green School South Africa outside Paarl by GASS Architecture Studios sets a new benchmark for green buildings while harnessing biophilic design principles to create a school that is both beautiful and inspiring.

INTRODUCTION

Green School South Africa in the Drakenstein Valley just outside Paarl in the Western Cape is the first Green School in Africa. It is the third in a growing worldwide network of Green Schools, which educate for sustainability through communityintegrated, entrepreneurial learning in a natural environment.

The founders of Green School SA, Herman and Alba Brandt, first heard about Green School Bali in 2011 and had it on their bucket list until in 2017 they embarked on an adventure to live in the jungle and have their kids attend the school for a semester. They found the learning environment – and the principles on which the school was based – so inspiring that they decided to launch one in South Africa.

The classrooms are arranged in organic clusters that face onto central courtyards with trees, creating intermediate and outdoor learning spaces and a strong relationship with the outdoors.

The school’s educational philosophy includes a research-based approach to learning about the environment based on the conviction that all education systems should prepare children for a changing world and sustainable future. The prospect of a better future for the planet and for humanity depends on a preserving, restoring and sustaining nature in all our social and economic activities. Education, the Green School approach believes, should play a fundamental role in nurturing an appreciation that humanity’s future is inextricably tied to that of the planet, and promoting an entrepreneurial mindset among its learners that will in turn inspire innovation within a sustainable circular economy in future.

The Green School network is very particular about the physical space in which learning takes place: the school campus and buildings. The curriculum and the learning environment are inextricably intertwined, with lessons frequently taking place outdoors.

All Green School architecture is rooted in biophilic design, an approach that nurtures the connection between people and the natural environment. One of the most respected writers on the topic, Stephen Kellert, who was a professor of social ecology at Yale University, described biophilic design as “the deliberate attempt to translate an understanding of the inherent human affinity to affiliate with natural systems and processes … into the design of the built environment.”

Biophilic design harnesses the tangible and visible presence of light, space, plants, weather, ecosystems, natural forms, animals and other elements to maximise wellbeing and enhance the ability to learn and develop. Research shows that even in a normal green learning environment, test scores improve by as much as 25%. Maths progression has been found to be 20% faster, absenteeism (among children and staff) dropped by 41% and reading progression is 26% faster than ordinary school environments.

CONTEXT

The eight-hectare site is located in a lowlying valley with Paarl Rock to the north, the Drakenstein Mountains to the east and south, and the Simonsberg towards the southwest.

The first phase of construction, which was completed in February this year (2021), includes facilities for learners from kindergarten to Grade 8. A second phase, planned to be complete by 2025, will add facilities for learners up to Grade 12. The first phase includes 16 classrooms, the ‘Sangkep’, which is a hall-type space (Balinese for ‘gathering place’), an administration building and a central area known as the Heart of School, which includes a dining hall, kitchen, library, art and music studios, and ablution facilities.

Extensive landscaping and gardens are integrated with the architecture so that landscape and architecture are extensions of each other. The gardens include endemic plants, which help restore the biodiversity on the campus and beyond, support bird and insect life, including bees, butterflies and other seed-spreading insects. The gardens also include vegetable gardens, fruit forests, medicinal gardens and herbal corridors.

INSPIRATION

GASS Architecture Studios won the tender to design Green School SA, working closely with a range of consultants and partners, including sustainable design consultants the Terramanzi Group, landscapers DDS Projects and various engineering consultants including AECOM and Sutherland.

The spatial arrangement of the buildings on the site was inspired by the organic tectonic shapes of the Paarl Rock Boulders. The overall site plan mimics the broader geography of the area at an architectural scale, following nature’s example in which patterns are often repeated on varying scales, and disparate parts relate to each other to make an integrated whole.

Each building’s curved walls and organic shapes also echo the rounded forms of the boulders, which are reprised in other micro elements, such as the river pebbles used in gabion walls, harvested onsite and from nearby riverbeds. Their low-slung, horizontal emphasis helps them appear unimposing and almost ‘sunken’ into the landscape, while deep overhangs and other passive design principles enhance their comfort and performance.

The organic clustered arrangement of the buildings makes provision for intermediate and outdoor learning spaces, centred on courtyards with trees. Views of the mountains and school gardens are visible from all classrooms, and the classrooms themselves feature large windows and doors so that they ‘live out’.

The individual buildings themselves – particularly the larger administration and entrance building, Sangkep and Heart of the School – also took inspiration from the shape of a curled, dried leaf the architects found during early site visits, with part of its veined structure exposed. This form embodies the combination of a sheltering form that imparts a sense of refuge and security, which gradually dissolves into a slatted overhang with beams reminiscent of the leaf ‘skeleton’. Elements of nature are also expressed and made visible in other details, such as the rain chains (an alternative to gutters) and water channels.

LIVING BUILDING CHALLENGE

After a detailed due diligence, the team decided to target a Living Building Challenge (LBC) certification, which is considered the world’s most stringent sustainable building certification, and is aligned with the ethos and aspirations of the Green School network. In fact, the LBC aims beyond net zero status to become regenerative. This means that once operational, the school will for instance generate more energy than it consumes, use less water than it naturally gets on the site, not only take care of its own waste, but helps parents and community members to deal with their waste. The LBC requires not only documentation of the design, construction process and materials, but also performance statistics for a year after the completion of the building.

CONSTRUCTION AND MATERIALS

Natural materials were prioritised throughout the campus, and include rammed earth, clay, timber, and locally manufactured bricks. Several of these materials drawn from the site itself, such as the rammed earth and stone, which is not just environmentally efficient (reducing the environmental cost of transportation), but also introduces a natural colour palette that arises from the local setting and landscape itself.

The interiors of the classrooms and other communal areas, such as the kitchen and dining hall, have abundant natural light, powerful connections to the outdoor areas and views, and feature richly tactile natural materials, including joinery and furniture made from FSC-certified local timber and wood from cleared alien trees.

The classrooms have clay floors, timber roof structures and reed ceilings. The LBC challenge requires drastically reduced quantities of cement, so lime plaster and predominantly lime-based floor screeds were used wherever possible. Doors were sourced from local salvage yards, restored and integrated into the buildings, often carrying with them connections to certain elements of local vernacular architecture. Beyond the sensory and tactile richness of the materials, these recycled elements add a dimension of local cultural heritage and a sense of historical context to the sense of place.

The LBC requires that the materials used in construction contain no harmful products, and further, that none of its stringent ‘red list’ of product ingredients is used in their manufacture either.

Many manufacturers in South Africa are unaccustomed to providing all the formation necessary to meet LBC standards, and in many cases were simply unable to do so. Some suppliers, however, rose to the challenge and several innovative alternative products were developed specifically for the school, including some African firsts. These include wax-sealed timber (instead of wood preservatives containing arsenic and chrome), innovative recipes for red list-free epoxies for the floors for the kitchen and ablutions, and a VOCfree blackboard paint for the classrooms.

ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

Energy for Green School SA is supplied by a hybrid solar system that produces more energy than the school needs and feeds excess into the grid. While efficient passive design (including thermally massive materials, insulation, orientation, shading, etc) provides abundant natural light and thermal comfort, additional heating and cooling is provided by a Thermally Activated Building Structure (TABS) system. The system – one of a handful in SA, and the first in a school – circulates warm water in winter (and cool in summer) through pipes embedded in the floors. The temperature is controlled with reversible heat pumps.

Local rocks and stones are used in the gabion walls; classrooms are set in clusters

Water is drawn from a combination of boreholes, river water and rainwater harvesting systems. It is stored in a system of reservoirs and ultimately, especially through rainwater harvesting, is able to replenish the natural water systems from which it draws. The school’s advanced natural wastewater treatment plant has an extensive purification system that returns clean water to the natural system.

LANDSCAPING

The influence of local architectural history is incorporated in a number of references to local vernacular building types. The notion of the Cape werf or farmyard is evoked in the spatial arrangements and distinctive low walls around the campus. Other details, such as the water channels that runs through the Heart of the School, based on the notion of the leiwater or irrigation channel, combine not just a cultural and historical reference, but introduce a biophilic elemental presence of water to the campus.

The ribbon-like paths and wayfinding systems in the transitional spaces include curved, organic shapes that conceal and reveal aspects of the landscape, transforming the practical process of getting from A to B into a ‘journey of discovery’, prompting curiosity. This sense of physical and intellectual freedom within a secure environment once again adds an embodied, experiential dimension to the pedagogic principles of Green School SA.

The enclosed archways along the paths and planted berms that seems to rise around you as you progress along the paths, provide an immersive experience of the landscape. This meandering layout eschews axes and focal points, encouraging an exploratory principle and a sense of wonderment and discovery analogous with learning itself.

The site was previously used for grazing for horses, and the soil had become degraded and eroded. The new landscape design, by DDS Projects, promotes biodiversity through habitat creation. It reintroduced endemic Renosterveld, which historically would have been the dominant veld type of this area. To further promote biodiversity, seeds were sown and bulbs were interplanted. A large indigenous forest was created to function in part as a windbreak to assist in creating a microclimate and act as much needed habitat for birds.

Reflecting patterns found in nature; the rounded, organic shapes of the buildings was inspired by nearby landforms

Meandering paths lead through covered archways providing an immersive experience of landscape

A very large portion of the grounds at Green School SA is dedicated to the growing of fresh produce harvested from the gardens to supply the kitchen, where they are transformed into school meals. This integrated experiential dimension of the children’s connection to the landscape and sustenance is embodied in the design of the campus.

Large areas are dedicated to vegetable farming using permaculture techniques, and other areas have been sown with cover crops to improve soil and for the raising of free-range chickens, a food forest with a variety of fruit trees, a medicinal garden, a dam to be planted with edible indigenous aquatic plants and in future to be set up for fish, a large indigenous forest area for foraging and agricultural education, and lastly an area dedicated for the production of honey with flowering indigenous plants.

CONCLUSION

The complexity of this multi-layered architectural approach itself is a key principle of biophilic design. The natural and architectural environment is rich in information, embodying the organised complexity that stimulates mind and body. Many aspects of the design and materials, down to the furniture, have a palpably handcrafted quality.

Ultimately, the environment of the school itself has the potential to prove regenerative beyond the site borders and to percolate into social, cultural and economic systems and institutions of the future through the influence it has on the children who attend Green School SA.

Professional Team Architects: GASS Architecture Studios Landscape Architects: DDS Projects Interior Design: D12 Interiors Structural Engineer: Sutherland Engineers Electrical Engineer: Frame Fire Engineer: AECOM Civil Engineers: Frame Engineering Traffic Engineer: ITS Comfort Engineer: Climetric Sustainable Design Consultant: Terramanzi Group Quantity Surveyor: AECOM Contractor: Energy Master Builders