Portfolio >> Education Photography >> About Huish Episcopi College _

Huish Episcopi School Science College is a high performance specialist school. Their vision is to transform the campus and improve facilities for the whole school so that the educational, personal and social needs of the pupils, staff and community can be met in a safe, secure inclusive environment with exciting, modern buildings to enable the school to recruit at the 16 -19 age range.

MRA was appointed to carry out a site development plan and to progress the concept design for submission to the Learning & Skills Council for funding of this new Sixth Form provision. The application was successful and the project started on site in July 2009 and was completed to a restricted budget in time for the start of the 2010 academic year.

After considering the various alternatives, the design team opted for a super-efficient air source heat pump to provide most of the heating to the new sixth form block. This is a system where solar energy stored in the air is transferred into the heating system. Compared to a normal gas heating system this heat pump will save at least 3256 kg of CO2 every year. This equates to a 10.88% reduction of CO2. While a normal gas heating system would operate at an efficiency of 86%, the air source heat pump has an efficiency of 321%. It also allows for a more controllable heating environment.

The local authority requirements are for the building to satisfy a 10% carbon emissions reduction above and beyond building regulations, and so the design meets this requirement. The building is also designed to meet BREEAM 'very good' as required by the Learning Skills Council who are funding the project.