Living in harmony with the land and sea has been a pillar of Hawaiian culture for centuries. But you wouldn’t think it if you’d visited one of Hawaii’s 270 public schools. Stark lighting, stiflingly hot classrooms, and loud air conditioners are the norm, much like in the rest of the country.
Many of Hawaii’s public schools were built decades ago with insufficient funds and a lack of good natural ventilation for the tropical climate. As a result, the Hawaii Department of Education is the third largest electricity consumer in the state.
But in other areas, Hawaii has been a leader when it comes to going green. In 2015, it was the first state to set a deadline to run completely offrenewable energyby 2040, and it’s stillon trackto achieve that goal. Now, Hawaii’s public schools are starting to be redesigned so that they align with the surrounding climate.On the west side of Oahu is Honouliuli Middle School, built on old sugarcane land. Ferraro Choi has been working to renovate the 18-acre campus since 2014; the first phase was completed last year, and includes a three-story classroom building, student center, cafeteria, and library, all of which were designed to be as energy efficient as possible using passive design approaches.
“Living in Hawaii, you think you’re comfortable all the time, but a lot of students are spending the majority of their days in a facility that wasn’t designed for natural ventilation,” says Brooks. Research shows that a comfortable, well-ventilated classroom improves the well-being and learning experience for students.
Since the project’s completion, the school has seen an estimated annual savings of 64% on energy usage, which translates to $500,000 a year.
For Hawaii’s schools, the biggest energy challenges are lighting and air conditioning, according to Riki Fujitani, director of the Office of Facilities and Operations for the Department of Education. Since schools don’t pay their own bills, they tend to not pay a ton of attention to their energy consumption, he adds.
The new buildings use mixed mode ventilation—both natural air and air conditioning—based on the time of year and even time of day. “A lot of people think you can just open a window, but good natural ventilation is not that simple,” Brooks says. With the help of wind analysis software, the buildings were placed at an angle to catch the northeast trade wind. When temperatures increase, exhaust fans and low-maintenance variable refrigerant flow air conditioning systems help create airflow. They can be more costly, but they’re also more precise at cooling specific zones, which is ideal for mixed mode ventilation. These systems also recycle their own waste heat as a “free resource” that controls humidity in the rooms.These techniques allow the building to rely on natural ventilation for eight months of the year. So, teachers can operate the air conditioners efficiently, AC controls are designed with colored indicator lights to tell them if the weather conditions are hot or humid enough to turn the AC on.
The facility represents Hawaii’s traditional indoor-outdoor living with four separate classroom buildings connected by a covered breezeway. Leveraging Hawaii’s climate, Ferraro Choi used passive design techniques to cut energy usage by nearly half.
“The difference between the existing campus and the new STEM complex is immense in terms of our progression to being environmentally conscientious,” says principal Amy Stafford. She notes how things like wind movement weren’t considered when the main campus was built in 1926. But the new buildings’ long faces are turned toward the east to better catch the breeze.
“If a school can afford a renovation project, using passive design is a no-brainer,” says Fujitani.
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