High Performance Relocatable Classrooms

Gregg D. Ander, R. Anthony Pierce, Christine Magar, and Eric Jones, Southern California Edison

Keywords

Abstract

The school market segment represents a significant national building opportunity for relocatable classrooms over the next few years. This opportunity is driven by a number of factors, including mandatory class size reduction policies, increases in population, construction time limitations, and economic issues. One of every eight square feet of commercial building space in the United States and Canada is devoted to education.

Oftentimes, site-built schools are not an option to meet all of the classroom requirements for school districts. Relocatables offer a significantly less expensive alternative and can be ordered and delivered to a building site much quicker than building a classroom via the traditional design and construct process. In California alone, 28,000 new relocatable classrooms were supplied during 1996 and 1997.

Concerns about the quality of these relocatable classrooms have been magnified by a number of recent media reports. In response to these concerns, a high-performance relocatable classroom design was initiated by Southern California Edison and its partners. The design criteria addressed critical factors that affect high performance relocatables and student productivity. Some of the factors addressed include visual and acoustic comfort, security, durability, efficiency, and air quality.

Two prototypical classrooms were fabricated in adherence to the design criteria. Based on computer simulation models, both prototypes demonstrate significant energy savings over the minimum standard of a classroom conforming to the California energy codes. They also demonstrate an integrated design approach that enhances the performance of the standard relocatable classroom.

This paper explores the design process and describes the two resulting prototypical relocatable classroom designs. Findings of the computer energy modeling, daylight analyses and material selection are provided and illustrations of the two prototype classroom schemes are presented.