February 23 2021

Sustainability specialists Architype have extended their rapid rollout of a new breed of Passivhaus-standard schools with plans for a new Perth primary.

Following hot on the heels of Currie Community High School in Edinburgh the two-storey North Perth Primary at Uist Place will serve as a direct replacement for North Muirton and Balhousie schools, both at the end of their life.

The integrated campus will rise on the site of North Muirton Primary amid a 1970's garden-style housing estate and deliver 14 classrooms catering for up to 462 pupils.

Architype proposes to build the new school to the immediate south of the old building, on the site of an existing nursery, delivering a series of single banked classrooms arranged off a wide central hub. Fenestrations are guided by the optimum arrangement for daylight and heat gain with minimal glazing to the east and west as well as canopies and an overhanging roof to help prevent overheating.

Outlining their energy-first approach Architype wrote: "The amount of glazing is dictated by the orientation, the daylighting requirements of the rooms, the boundary conditions and balancing the risk of overheating.

"Passivhaus utilises mechanical ventilation with heat recovery to maintain internal comfort with low CO2 levels, even temperatures and lack of draughts for a large part of the school year."

Budgeted at £16.5m the new school will open its doors to pupils for the 2023 school year.

8 Comments

#1 Posted by U-WOT-M8? on 23 Feb 2021 at 12:04 PM

I'm not sure even the dreadful hub procurement can value engineer that monstrosity further! They'll give it a go though for sure.

Thats looks awful, like a 1992 flat development level of awful.

#2 Posted by Whispering Andy on 23 Feb 2021 at 12:11 PM

Whisper it......but that looks even worse than the 'passivhaus' scheme in Edinburgh from yesterday.

Another poster raised concern of the concept being lifted from DFE schools - which were cheapest is best, not passivhaus.

Be interested to see when the description is downgraded to 'following the principles of passivhaus' - which will definitely happen.

#3 Posted by Malcolm Fraser on 23 Feb 2021 at 15:43 PM

Passivhaus or not, this is a dreadful and depressing design by Architype. These "sustainability specialists" should really learn a thing or two about aesthetics in architecture.

#4 Posted by D to the R on 23 Feb 2021 at 19:35 PM

Hells bells ... is this what passivhaus looks like? Pretty sure the likes of Mackintosh managed to be innovation in design without it looking absolutely honking

#5 Posted by The sinik on 23 Feb 2021 at 22:53 PM

I though the hub procurement was all but done? Surely they are still not under delivering whilst over charging the tax payer? Local Authorities really need to start getting control of their infrastructure projects again, as these Hubs and SFT in general have been an expensive failed exercise.

#6 Posted by Fat Bloke on Tour on 24 Feb 2021 at 22:17 PM

£1mill per classroom -- is that the going rate for a primary school today?

And then you have the mechanical ventilation angle -- not very passive if you need active ventilation?

Finally in a time of CoViD19 -- does Passiv anything have a future?

#7 Posted by Jona on 26 Feb 2021 at 14:41 PM

Absolutely terrible design by Architype! Poor children forced to spend their time in such an ugly building. No matter how efficient it is, utterly depressing!

#8 Posted by Confusicus once said on 27 Feb 2021 at 19:37 PM

So this hub procurement really confuses me. In this instance am I correct in saying that the councils have to give the work to the hub. The hub is owned by Roberson construction. There is a tender undertaken by Robertson construction - who 9.5 times out of 10 award the project to Roberson construction? It it really as sinister as that? It seems very unfair on the wider construction market that these guys are able to Hoover up all our public sector projects.

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