Creating Healthy Educational Environments
Hawaii is planning to replace 10,000 low-quality, energy inefficient portable classrooms over the next decade.
San Francisco-based Anderson Anderson Architecture has created a prototype of a solar powered, modular, portable classroom in Ewa Beach, Hawaii that uses just one-fifth of the energy it creates. The new classrooms, called Energy Positive Portable Classrooms, will be built in a factory and transported to school sites.
The main features of these classrooms include photovoltaic panels covering roof surfaces that will generate more power than consumed, natural ventilation, and careful placement of windows to maximize the use of natural light. The buildings are “smart” in that they designed to be energy efficient in a variety of climates and do this using building performance monitoring systems.
An industry leader in building portable classrooms, Ramtech keeps 52 classroom holdings in inventory for immediate delivery to areas hit by natural or other disasters.
Following is a time-lapse video of a 35,000 square foot temporary modular classroom building being set up in Needham, Massachusetts.
