Primary School reclamation

In the Spring of 2018 our crew undertook to take a de-commisioned elementary school apart piece by piece. It was slated for demolition and landfill. The owner bought the building at a reasonable price and could see the potential for deconstructing the school in panels to re-purpose in a future building. What kind of building we asked…?

The response was –“I want to build a large commercial aqua-ponics Earth shelter”. Essentially a large scale closed system of fertilizing vegetables like lettuce with the waste nutrients from live fish in tanks (that’s the “aqua” reference). We worked on preliminary drawings to mock up what he was thinking in terms of energy efficiency and utilizing a low cost geothermal foundation system that would take “free” energy from below the frost line to gain energy/heat in the winter and moderate heat in the summer. Utilizing the ground as a great heat sink essentially. South-facing glass will allow for direct sunshine for the plants and also to enable in solar gain for the cooler months to keep heating costs down.

This page shows the reclamation of the “Evergreen Elementary School” in Campbell River, BC Canada. Our design will be determined by the components that we recovered. Stay tuned for the design details and photos as the green house takes shape.