Lynnwood High School

Through an integrated design process, the Edmonds School District worked with Bassetti Architects to design the 216,000-square-foot Lynnwood High School in Lynnwood, WA, to be a model of environmental responsibility. The Edmonds School District is committed to durable, maintainable facilities and recognizes the potential for money savings through superior energy performance. Bassetti Architects also seeks to make sustainability and a reduced ecological footprint key design goals.

The architect and owner chose to use EPA's Target Finder tool as the metric for setting and assessing energy efficiency goals and communicating the expected energy performance of their project. Lynwood High School rated 91 out of 100 in the tool and achieved Designed to Earn the ENERGY STAR, with an expected energy use reduction of 44 percent compared with an average building of similar type.

Officials from the Edmonds School District designed Lynnwood High School to meet the state of Washington's Sustainable Schools Protocol. They look forward to operating a healthier school and using the facility to teach environmental responsibility and energy conservation.

"It is important for the Edmonds School District to address energy efficiency because doing so serves our primary duty to our students and larger community," said District Capital Projects Director Edward J. Peters. "The District pays utility bills from the same funding source that provides teachers, classroom materials, and other learning essentials. If we can control energy costs, we have more resources to devote to our core mission. We chose ENERGY STAR as a platform because it is a proven and practical standard that our constituents recognize as the authoritative voice on energy use."

Specific energy-efficient design features of the school include: convection ventilation, high-efficiency boilers, thorough insulation, site orientation for maximum use of daylighting, and high-efficiency lighting with occupancy sensors.