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Environment building - Mid Sweden University

In Four cities north of Sweden: Sundsvall, Härnösand, Östersund and Örnsköldsvik there are schools which are all named Mid Sweden University. The local university in our town has recently undergone an extension. The school has become almost twice as big as it was before, this new part should enclose the entire Institution of that is located in Örnsköldsvik and a part of the Institution of Industrial Technology
The extension was somewhat of an environmental project, everything from the plumbing to the air quality was considered.                 This is how the new part of the school are going to look like.
At the place where the new part of the school was built there used to be an old gas station and a car repair shop. The existence of those two shops made the project a little more complicated, certain demands on the demolition work were made.

Environment goals and factors during the building time
  1. Environment inventory of the land and nearby surroundings should be made.

  2. The economising of assets should be carefully considered and the questions of energy analysed.

  3. The building should meet the demands on recycling and reuse of the material in a reconstruction or a final teardown.

  4. Useful material should be chosen.

Air quality and ventilation system

This building has a very specific ventilation system which is biologic. Several kinds of plants like are used as a filter to clean the air from particles . See number 1 on the next page.
This system is also used to lower the heating costs during the winter. As on the description on the next page the system has vents to let the air circulate inside the university or not. See number 2 on the next page.

For example: In the summer the filters just clean the air and let new in. The system isn’t used as effectively in summer, because its much warmer then. In the winter the air circulates inside the university, and just a little air is used from outside. This university is a test project and there are several other things which are is examined, for example: how the students feel in the school. This depend on the air quality. When the air is ionised or not, the students should feel a difference. If there is a positive effect or not is not known yet.

Map of the biologic ventilation system


Problems found afterwards.
Recently, problems concerning the foundation were found. There are cracks in one of the bearing walls and there are now two possibilities to choose from. One way is to tear down the newly built section. The other is to use metallic beams to support the wall.

Our hypotheses is that they are going to tear down the section, because every little piece in the foundation is ecological.

What we are interested in knowing is if you have any similar schools or building projects in your city. It would be really "fun" to know if you could tell us about that.

This building is more expensive to build then a ordinary building without special
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