AUBURN — Harriman was a recipient of the prestigious 2011 Building New Hampshire Awards for its design of the new Idlehurst Elementary School in Somersworth, N.H.

The firm was recently recognized with an award in the commercial category for its sustainable, high-performance design of the 82,000-square-foot school for prekindergarten to fifth grade students.

The building was designed and built to minimize its carbon footprint and impact on the environment. The school was also designed to meet the Northeast CHPS program offered by the New Hampshire Department of Education. Sustainable design features include building orientation to maximize solar heat gain and daylighting, radiant floor heating with displacement ventilation, demand ventilation and CO2, sun shades and light shelves, and continuous dimming control, variable frequency drives, variable-volume kitchen exhaust and gas-fired condensing boilers.

It is estimated that the school will save 277,861 kilowatt hours, resulting in approximately $29,000 in savings annually; 5,000 therms (natural gas), resulting in approximately $12,750 in annual savings; and reduce CO2 emissions by 169,451 pounds.

The new school has also been called the “greenest” school in the state, according to Ed Murdough of the New Hampshire Department of Education.

Harriman is a full-service architectural and engineering design firm with offices in Auburn and Portland, Maine, and Manchester, N.H. For more information, go to: www.harriman.com.