January 1, 2018

Daylight in a Massachusetts School

“I want to build our schools for how we are going to teach over the next fifty years.” 

Eneref Institute examines how a rooftop repair program was employed to brighten a Massachusetts middle school.

The Massachusetts School Building Authority optimized a rooftop repair program with a code-compliant, energy-saving natural interior daylight system that enhanced the school building’s interior environment.

While for one middle school, roof replacement was the primary objective of the project, the program provided an opportunity to significantly upgrade the existing old-style dome-shaped skylights. With 1,750 schools to manage, the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) has an extensive and complex infrastructure that the program’s executive director views as an opportunity for sustainability.

“I don’t want to retrofit educational facilities for the way we taught for the past fifty years. I want to build our schools for how we are going to teach over the next fifty years,” said Jack McCarthy, Executive Director, Massachusetts School Building Authority.

Over the summer of 2014, Massachusetts’ Ashland Middle School replaced their existing skylights with spectrally selective glazed skylights.

The project was funded with a combination of school district funds from the town of Ashland and funds provided by the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) Accelerated Repair Program (ARP). The MSBA created the ARP in 2010 to facilitate the replacement of aging and out-of-date roofs, windows, and boilers in Massachusetts public schools. The town funds came from a measure voted on in the spring of 2014, to fund repair/ renovation at three local schools.

eneref_daylight_school_ashland_brist-4

The Massachusetts School Building Authority optimized a rooftop repair program with a code-compliant, energy-saving natural interior daylight system that enhanced the school building’s interior environment. 

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