Sustainable Education facility lays foundations for Greener Construction Industry in Scotland

Located on Carnegie College’s Halbeath Campus in Dunfermline, ECOSpace is the UK’s first centre for sustainable construction. While the facility caters for courses ranging from joinery, painting and decorating to furniture restoration and upholstery, one of the most important lessons to be learnt here is that of green construction. Environmental best practice is the message at the heart of all courses on offer and the building itself is designed to the highest environmental standards, demonstrating that a building can really practice what it preaches. Designed by international architectural firm RMJM the highly sustainable training centre opened in September 2006 and since then more than 400 students have undertaken training in the workshops on a variety of full and part time courses. The £2.2 million centre aims to lead the way in training students in sustainable construction and encourages the integration of environmentally sustainable work practices such as waste reduction, re-use of materials, procurement of renewable resources and minimisation of energy consumption. The design of the centre reflects the ambition and purpose of the facility. It is built from renewable materials and incorporates renewable energy systems that reduce the energy consumption of the building and its impact on the environment. Alan Huey, Head of School of Built Environment at Carnegie College, commended the building for its ability to give students first hand experience of an environmentally sustainable workplace with green practices. “The physical structure benefits from a state of the art building management system and monitoring devices which enable students and visitors to see the energy efficiency of the building compared to the other parts of our campus. Students now recognise the benefits of a sustainable building - something they will take with them to the workplace and benefit communities of the future.”   The facility also features a suite of restoration workshops that train craftspeople from across Scotland, helping to boost the number of people practising traditional crafts in the construction industry. Janet McCauslin, Assistant Principal at Carnegie College, said: “The ECOSpace project was so named to draw attention to the green features of this interesting new learning space. Upon completion it became part of Carnegie's expanding School of Built Environment and ASPIRE (Additional Support Programmes for Real Life/Work Environments) Centre. The project was part of our aim to reduce the ecological footprint of our campus and our negative impact upon the planet over future decades, taking our students, staff and customers with us to consequently change behaviours in their future work and home lives. “ECOSpace was a large and complex project. We stretched ourselves, our main contractors and partners by imposing exacting standards in sustainable procurement by attempting to capture all the learning that has taken place and we are now working with the Scottish Funding Council on the next phase of the process, a full sustainability evaluation of the project.” The centre was awarded the Scottish Design Award for Sustainable Design last month and also features as a case study on sustainable design on Architecture and Design Scotland’s website. Paul Rodgers, RMJM Director, said: “We’re delighted that ECOSpace has been recognised for its highly sustainable credentials by the Scottish Design Awards. ECOSpace is an exemplar project which reflects the nature of the facility in its design and winning the award for the most sustainable design is great for the college and everyone connected with the project.”