Proctor gains ground with Scottish passive schools
News Desk

Proctor gains ground with Scottish passive schools

A. Proctor Group’s Wraptite airtightness membrane is being specified in a number of Scottish passive schools – including an award-winning school in Perth and Kinross.Riverside Primary, Scotland’s inaugural primary school to achieve passive house certification, accommodates nearly six hundred pupils including eighty nursery-age children, and has been nominated for and secured multiple accolades for its innovative and sustainable design.

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Among its honours are a win at the Learning Places Scotland Awards 2023 for ‘Innovation in Delivering a Sustainable Learning Place’ and a Silver Award at the Scottish Design Awards 2024. It was also a finalist in the Public Sector category of the 2024 RICS awards and the Project Under £20m category of the CN Awards 2024.

A crucial element in the building’s high-performance fabric was the integration of A. Proctor Group’s Wraptite airtightness membrane.

Applied to the external side of the structural frame, this self-adhered membrane was instrumental in achieving an impressive airtightness test result of 0.53 air changes per hour (ACH) at 50 Pascals, comfortably surpassing the passive house standard requirement of 0.6 ACH. This performance is expected to translate into 50 per cent lower energy consumption compared to a conventional school.

Kevin Dickson, regional managing director at main contractor Robertson Construction Tayside, said delivering high-quality projects demand a good supply chain.

“The membrane used, Wraptite, was part of the construction for the passive house school and provided several benefits. Membranes work best with a consistent surface, which posed a challenge given the steel-framed construction of the school. However, as a business committed to continuous improvement, we saw this as an opportunity to advance our passive house knowledge and learn from this project alongside the architect archetype,” he said.

The project also marked a pioneering moment as one of the UK’s first steel-framed passive house constructions, addressing specific technical challenges related to heat loss and condensation. According to Proctor, the external application of the airtightness barrier simplified detailing around services and, as a vapour-permeable solution, mitigated condensation risks.

Lessons learned from Riverside Primary are already being applied to future developments, with Robertson Construction Tayside currently engaged in three more new-build passive house school projects: Perth High School, East End Community Campus in Dundee, and Monifieth Learning Campus.

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