Aga Khan Academy was designed to create a supportive learning environment for its students. The academy took this to the next level through EDGE certification where the intersect between environment and education provided an environment that was not just good for its students but for the planet as well.
| Project Name | Aga Khan Academy |
| Location | Dhaka, Bangladesh |
| Building Type | Education |
| Total Floor Area Certified | 14,328.74 m2 |
| Certification Date | 02 March 2022 |
| Savings achieved | 25.39% Energy Savings; 43.73% Water Savings, 21.23% Less Embodied Energy in Materials |
| Duration of Certification | 6 months from registration to completion |
Project Overview
The Aga Khan Academies is a network of institutions providing educational excellence for its pupils across 18 schools in 14 countries. The Academies aim to develop future leaders with the skills and knowledge to support positive development in their societies. The Aga Khan Academy Dhaka is the first of its kind in Bangladesh as the network begins to span across South Asia.
Construction of Aga Khan Academy Dhaka started in 2018 and is expected to start enrolling students in August of 2022. The Academy will take in students at primary level right through to diploma level, initially enrolling 750 students with a capacity to expand to 1,200. A key aim is to teach its students to be reflective, compassionate, adventurous and creative citizens that make a positive contribution in a changing world.
The design stages start in 2013 where the environmental impact of the building was not initially considered. Once the building had been constructed, the Foundation started to research into different certification schemes to add extra credibility to the building and improve its environmental performance. They sought the help of a local EDGE Expert to help them develop a retrofit strategy and implemented a wide variety of measures to help them reach the EDGE standard. Amongst many measures applied to reduce the buildings operational energy usage they installed external shading devices, insulated the roof and external walls and installed energy saving lightbulbs. To reduce the water usage in the building, they installed low flow and water efficient faucets.
Why EDGE?
Aga Khan Foundation places importance on designing and building infrastructures in response to the climate crisis and wanted to develop a strategy to reduce its resource intensity. Certification was important to validate their work and provide independent proof to their stakeholders that the strategy did improve the environmental impact of the building. They did some market research into different schemes on the market and chose EDGE to set a sustainability benchmark in the region and act as a catalyst for future projects in the country to develop more eco-friendly buildings.
What’s Next?
The Foundation is very keen to implement green building certification into new projects. Whilst one building was certified under this certification, they have six remaining buildings on the campus that will undergo the EDGE certification process, with the hopes of achieving EDGE Advanced across the board. The hope is to achieve the maximum resource efficiency possible with ambitions to develop net zero buildings. The Aga Khan Academies Foundation head office, which is based in Paris is also looking into getting certified. This is an exciting development for the Foundation and as such a global network of institutions we are eager to see what’s to come!
