UK's largest Passivhaus education building welcomes pupils today

This progressive co-location of the Woodmill High School and St Columba’s RC High School and the nature of a joint campus, offer unique ways in which the pupils and the wider community can benefit from the many new shared resources, enhancing learner outcomes. Both schools are able to remain operationally separate and showcase their own identities due to the form, massing and interior design implemented.

Located within the new Dunfermline Learning Campus, this exemplary learning hub will sit alongside a new Fife College facility. Spanning an impressive 26,666 m², the new facility accommodates 2,700 pupils and 246 staff, making it the largest building built to Passivhaus standards in the UK. By optimising natural light, ventilation and air tightness throughout, this high performing learning environment promises to be energy-efficient, cost effective and comfortable. The ambitious scale of the building reflects an innovative strategic vision mapped around learners.

The campus provides a seamless learner pathway from second-level education through further education and training, towards business enterprise and employment. The learner journey is enhanced significantly through learning pathways across establishments located on a single campus.

Not only a centre of learning excellence, the building is also a great asset to the local community. The modern sports facilities are fully accessible by pupils, teachers, parents and the wider community and are capable of accommodating the needs of both large groups and individual users alike. Surrounded by green spaces, the building is home to a learning lab, with a community kitchen, performance space, state of the art recording studio, IT hub and multiuse media lab all available for use by the public.

As one of the first construction projects to apply the Scottish Government / Scottish Futures Trust (SFT)‘s new ‘Net Zero Public Sector Buildings Standard’, this is an SFT Pathfinder project. On track to achieve Passivhaus Classic certification later this year and setting a low embodied carbon value of 626 kgCO₂e/m², the campus is at the forefront of environmentally conscious design that will shape, inspire, and support the community for many years.

Explore the ways this visionary project will enhance learner outcomes now and into the future here