ENERGY STAR Building Design Profile

The Kennedy Community School, situated in a residential area of rural Minnesota, aims to be a model for teaching students and the community about taking care of the environment. This building design achieved Designed to Earn the ENERGY STAR, distinguishing it as one of the nation's best in design intent. If the school is built and operated as planned, and continues to meet or exceed EPA criteria for energy performance, the building can earn the ENERGY STAR label.

The Kennedy Community School is a 137,000 sq. ft. building that will accommodate 755 students. In addition to space for the sciences, art, and media, the building also contains a large gymnasium, a cafeteria with stage, and a multi-use activity area. As the school's name implies, the design encourages use of the common areas by the community.

To achieve superior energy design intent, the design team included numerous energy-saving technologies. A geothermal loop field and water-to-water heat pumps are the primary source of energy for both heating and cooling. Ventilation in most spaces will use displacement ventilation, providing greater comfort while using less energy to provide more fresh air into the learning spaces.

Daylighting is another important strategy for saving energy in the school. The design carefully oriented the classrooms along an east-west axis, giving the classroom windows north and south exposure. Using a modeling program, windows were designed for all of the general classrooms, the media center, the cafeteria, many of the administrative offices, and some of the music rooms to provide natural light at full lighting levels during much of the school's operational day. Tubular skylights will provide natural lighting to the interior corridors of the school. Occupancy sensors in all of these spaces will control dimmable fluorescent fixtures and reduce electrical lighting consumption.

The Kennedy Community School also uses renewable energy. Photovoltaic panels on the south facing roofs of the mechanical rooms and a wind turbine at the northwest side of the site will produce energy to be sold back to the utility, further reducing the school's energy bill.

Energy for the transportation of materials will be reduced by having at least 20 percent of the materials used in the project provided from within 500 miles of the site. The design team strongly emphasized selecting sustainable construction materials for the project.

The computers of St. Cloud Area School District 742 will be interconnected to the controls system of the Kennedy Community School to allow students access to the energy information produced by the school. And, through a partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, students will participate in the development and maintenance of a native habitat being created on the site. These initiatives will help the district provide experiential learning material and meet its goal of making the school an environmental teaching tool for the entire community.

On completion of the design, the design team input data for the Kennedy Community School into EPA's Target Finder tool to obtain the project's estimated design energy rating and associated greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs. The project achieved a rating of 85 (out of a possible 100), exceeding the minimum rating of 75 required by EPA to qualify as Designed to Earn the ENERGY STAR.

Back to Active A&E Firms