Currie High School closes in on completion & certification

The City of Edinburgh Council's flagship high school building and swimming pool are getting closer to completion; and are both targeting Passivhaus certification.

Currie Community High School is one of the first projects in the Scottish Government’s Learning Estates Investment Programme (LEIP) that links funding to achieving a specific energy metric (67 kWh/m²/year) over 25 years. The project will achieve this by adopting the rigour of certified Passivhaus and will be one of the first Passivhaus secondary schools in Scotland.

The school will accommodate 1,000 pupils and features traditional classrooms and shared collaborative spaces. It acts as a community hub, with a wellness & leisure centre, fitness suite, and one of the UK’s first Passivhaus swimming pools, alongside a community library and a café. Learn more about the scheme in our previous news item.

Currie Community High School - construction site tour 2023

Key stats

Construction: Steel frame (main building), CLT and Glulam (swimming pool)
Number of pupils: 1000
TFA: 10,550 m²
Build start date: 2022
Completion expected: Spring 2025
Certification: Aiming for Passivhaus Classic

Image credit: Kier. Ann-Marie Fallon, Architype quote: What has been so refreshing is the close, open collaboration between the client and our design team. It has driven ambition into an inspiring project for the Pentland region and nationally. Bringing Passivhaus-at-scale to the learning estate in Scotland has been a fantastic experience.

Construction

The school building is constructed in steel frame, with the swimming pool building built from CLT and Glulam. Steel frame is prevalent in Scottish school construction. Initial feasibility studies proposed a concrete frame for the teaching and entrance block, and a steel frame to accommodate the large span games halls. However, due to economic pressures, the superstructure was switched to a braced steel frame for all elements, apart from the pool hall, which adopted a CLT and Glulam solution.

Currie Community High School - construction site tour 2023

Mineral wool insulation insulates the steel frame construction. Brick cladding will feature on the ground floor, with metal cladding at the upper levels.

U-values
Floor: 0.145 W/m²K average	Composite concrete slab
Wall: 0.175 W/m²K average	SFS (steel frame system) and sheathing board, with masonry or rainscreen cladding
Roof: 0.176 W/m²K average	Warm flat roof system

Currie High School. Construction progress March 2024. Image credit © Architype

Services

The services strategy consists of centralised MVHR (mechanical ventilation with heat recovery) systems, ASHPs (air source heat pumps) for heating and a mix of ASHPs and direct electric providing hot water.

The school shading strategy includes a brise soleil and canopies to the south elevation and vertical fins on some glazing for solar shading control. The pool south glazing incorporates an internal timber brise soleil to allow maximum solar gains, while avoiding solar glare for the swimming pool users.

Challenges

Steel frame added complexity in achieving Passivhaus compliance in detailing for airtightness and minimising thermal bridging. The project team worked holistically to overcome these challenges and upscale Passivhaus details for a building of this nature. Test rigs were used and pioneering details were developed to create robust buildable details. The test rig on site has been used to test the main details before building them up in the main construction site.
PHPP was split into five models due to varying internal temperature requirements and several building uses. The Passivhaus swimming pool required bespoke criteria provided by the Passivhaus Institut.
The campus is being constructed within a constrained site while the existing school remains in operation. Additional consideration and organisation of site operation is required to minimise disruption, from health and safety to circulation logistics.

Key team

Client: City of Edinburgh Council
Architect & Passivhaus Designer: Architype
Project Manager: AtkinsRealis
Contractor: Kier Construction
Structural engineer: Goodson Associates
M&E consultant: Rybka
Passivhaus Certifier: WARM

Currie Community High School. Image credit: Kier

We are looking forward to hearing from staff & pupils once the project is complete & certified. Completion is expected in Spring 2025. For more guidance, check out the How to Build a Passivhaus: Good Practice Guide or our FREE technical guidance on Steel in Passivhaus Construction.

Similar projects

Discover more Passivhaus certified educational buildings that have adopted steel frame construction. Visit our Passivhaus for Educational buildings for a larger variety of Passivhaus school case studies. Do not miss the Scottish showcase full of Passivhaus case studies in Scotland.