Colorado’s Emerald Elementary offers net-zero-ready facility featuring Tubelite Therml=Block storefront
Posted on July 23rd, 2024 by Heather West
Replacing an aging school with a modern, energy-efficient facility, Boulder Valley School District’s new Emerald Elementary School in Broomfield, Colorado, is a net-zero-ready, public school serving students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. Designed and constructed to meet the highest green building standards, the new school supports the district’s aggressive sustainability and energy efficiency goals.
Helping achieve the ambitious energy goals, Tubelite Therml=Block® TU24650 Series Storefront met Emerald Elementary’s high thermal performance requirements. The school district emphasized that the building was “designed with an eye on indoor environmental quality with abundant natural light provided by large windows, comfortable furniture and good indoor air quality achieved with ample ventilation and the use of low-VOC products and materials.”
Enhancing Emerald Elementary’s contemporary aesthetic, high performance and sustainability, the aluminum framing is finished in a clear Class I anodize. This durable finish highlights the natural metallic tones, while holding up to outdoor exposure in Colorado’s challenging climate and continuous use in the school setting. As an environmentally responsible finishing service provider and a single-source partner, Linetec provided both the no-VOC anodized finish and the thermal improvement for the Tubelite aluminum framing systems.
Emerald Elementary’s new 56,000-square-foot educational facility was designed by RB+B Architects in collaboration with Fielding Nair International. RB+B said, “Transparency between learning areas and the outdoors was also a key component of the design.”
Swinerton constructed the new school on the same site, while the existing facility remained operational. Four years after construction, the school district reported that the new building was 48% more energy efficient than the building it replaced or a code-compliant building of the same size.
Emerald Elementary was honored as a Peak Design Award winner by the Rocky Mountain Chapter Association 4 Learning Environments (A4LE), recognizing excellence in four areas of educational design: planning process, physical environment, learning environment and community connection.
Emerald Elementary School, 275 Emerald St., Broomfield, CO 80020; https://eme.bvsd.org
• Owner: Boulder Valley School District; Boulder, Colorado; https://www.bvsd.org
• Architect: RB+B Architects, Inc.; Fort Collins, Colorado; https://www.rbbarchitects.com
• Contractor: Swinerton, Inc.; Denver; https://swinerton.com/locations/denver
• Storefront aluminum framing system – manufacturer: Tubelite; Walker, Michigan; https://tubeliteusa.com
• Storefront aluminum framing system – finishing service provider: Linetec; Wausau, Wisconsin; https://linetec.com
• Photographer: Matt Puckett
Tubelite is a brand of Apogee Enterprises. To learn more about Tubelite products and projects, please visit https://tubeliteusa.com, call 800-866-2227, email dependable@tubeliteusa.com or contact a Tubelite client development manager.
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Filed under: Projects, Linetec, Tubelite