Bethke
Elementary School
Poudre School District
Timnath, Colorado
Date: 2008
Cost: $9,500,000
Area: 63,100 GSF
First LEED® for Schools Gold Certified school in the nation (pending).
Bethke Elementary School is a prototype elementary school that incorporates “micro-load” building
design, which utilizes a high-efficiency building envelope, daylighting
design and reduces internal gains to minimize heating and cooling system
capacities. PSD is pursuing LEED® Gold under the new 2007 USGBC
LEED® for Schools category. If it is successful, it will be the
first.
The overall design cooling load is more than 50% below that of conventional
building construction and design and annual energy savings are estimated
at 50% when compared to conventional construction.
Some of the design characteristics include: hydronic heating system
with modular, high-efficiency boilers and primary-secondary pumping,
indirect evaporative-cooled chilled water system cooling tower, plate
and frame heat exchanger and variable speed, rooftop air handling units,
electronic building automation system with communications to District
offices, wet-pipe fire sprinkler system, manual fire alarm system supplemented
with automatic detection in sensitive/high areas, security and access
control systems per PSD standards, 277/480 volt service from Xcel Energy,
and daylight harvesting lighting control system with exterior lighting
controlled by photocells and astronomical time clocks.
