This work presents a retrospective analysis of indoor COsub.2 measurements obtained with a mobile robot in an educational building after the COVID-19 lockdown (May 2021), at a time when public ...activities resumed with mandatory local pandemic restrictions. The robot-based COsub.2 measurement system was assessed as an alternative to the deployment of a net of sensors in a building in the pandemic period, in which there was a global stock outage of COsub.2 sensors. The analysis of the obtained measurements confirms that a mobile system can be used to obtain interpretable information on the COsub.2 levels inside the rooms of a building during a pandemic outbreak.
The assessment of indoor thermal comfort in schools has become an essential object of study; however, applying existing thermal comfort criteria would assume children and adults have a similar range ...of thermal comfort, without considering discrepancies regarding their level of activity or their behavioural adaptation. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to investigate the thermal comfort in a school building based on an adaptive thermal comfort field study in Seville, in the southwest of Spain, during a summer season. In this study, 2 free-running and 1 air-conditioned classroom were analysed; 67 students aged 10–11 years participated and 2010 thermal questionnaires were collected. A discrepancy was observed between the predicted mean vote and the thermal sensation vote, showing the former is not a good predictor of thermal perception. Thermoneutrality was not always the desired sensation for children; a preference for coolness was detected. A neutral temperature was observed at an average indoor temperature of 24–27 °C and a widening in the thermal comfort range was detected compared with international standards. Regarding adaptive strategies, they showed a preference towards opening windows and doors over using fans or changing clothes. The results suggest that the application of the current models for adults would not be suitable for estimating the thermal comfort of children, and these data could be used to promote natural strategies for assessing thermal comfort over conditioning systems in schools, with the aim of both space ventilation and energy efficiency.
•Thermal perception was analysed for children aged between 10 and 11 years.•A preference for coolness situations was observed during the summer season.•The proposed comfort temperature is higher compared to other European countries.•A widening in the thermal comfort range of the students was observed.•The adaptive behaviour is mainly represented by using fans or opening windows.
In the 1950s and 1960s, school buildings were rethought worldwide according to new necessities and a large number of education centres were also built in Spain. In this context, Miguel Fisac had the ...opportunity to design many school buildings and to attend specialised international meetings. The Cuestas Blancas School was built in Madrid in 1965 and became the most refined result of the Fisac’s experience in this kind of building. The work analyses in detail the Cuestas Blancas School to identify its values and particular contributions. The study forms part of a broader research project about school buildings, which allows placing the building of Fisac in relation to the school building advances of that time. The Cuestas Blancas School is a prominent example of school architecture, with an innovative organization and spatial wealth, that maintains its values up to the present.
•Analysis of heating consumption for existing school buildings.•Evaluation of energy performance for space heating.•Definition of energy retrofit strategies for heating in school ...buildings.•Economical evaluation of space heating retrofits.
Improving the energy performance of public buildings is important for the promotion of a culture of energy efficiency among the local population. Indeed the European Union has developed strategies particularly for this sector using specific legislation and has targeted projects for economic support.
In this paper we present a energy audit campaign conducted on 49 school building complexes located in the Lombardy region of Italy to collect data concerning their actual energy consumption for space heating, occupant behaviour and the technical characteristics of the buildings. On the basis of these data, different energy retrofit scenarios were studied with different performance and cost-effectiveness targets. The results show that it is not always convenient to improve excessively energy performance for heating.
For the past forty years Anne Taylor has studied how schools, classrooms, playgrounds, homes, museums, and parks affect children and how they learn. As a result, she has developed a holistic, ...sustainable philosophy of learning environment design. She argues persuasively that architects must integrate their design knowledge with an understanding of the developmental needs of learners, while at the same time educators, parents, and students must broaden their awareness of the built, natural, and cultural environment to maximize the learning experience. In other words, schools and other environments can themselves become "three-dimensional textbooks." When architects are cognizant of newer models of education and educators view the environment as more than a box in which to teach prescribed lessons, the result is an informed architecture that enables children to discover the power of their own learning. The book presents numerous examples of dynamic designs that are the result of interdisciplinary understanding of place. Taylor includes designer perspectives, forums derived from commentary by outside contributors involved in school planning, and a wealth of photographs of thoughtful and effective solutions to create learning environments from comprehensive design criteria. Because the concept of "school" is enlarged to a community campus, the book also spawns a new model of teaching and learning. This book is essential reading for educators, architects, and community members who are anxious to transform education in America and elsewhere. "Anne Taylor is the most outstanding educator, leading proponent, and practitioner in the three-dimensional textbook field. Her work is the finest resource available for connecting students (young and old) to their learning environments, and visa versa."--Edward E. Kirkbride, NCARB, REFP "Before Western man divided the universe into discrete subject matter areas, the order in the universe was (and still is) both interdisciplinary and holistic. The branching of trees, spiraling of shells, meandering of streams, and the radial designs of flowers, for example, represent an analogy of mathematics, biology, and art. The current artificial separation of subject matter is in contrast to the way the world is constructed and the way children perceive it. Architecture and the study of the built, natural, and cultural environment synthesize the world of material things and the world of ideas. Further more, it helps us to realize that we are a part of not apart from the environment. This book is a tool and a gift to designers, educators, and students everywhere to assist them in seeing the meaning behind all that we view and use for living on earth. To know our precious relationship to our surroundings is the intent of this book. In this way, life is a work of art and each of us is an artist."--Anne Taylor
•Heat load shifting in a real-life school building is demonstrated over a six-weeks period.•Schedule-based control efficiently shifts loads to off-peak periods, enhancing flexibility without ...sacrificing efficiency.•Pupil survey on thermal comfort perception shows no significant difference during the test period compared to business-as-usual operation.•Practical challenges in integrating simplified control approaches for building energy flexibility are outlined.
This work investigates the potential of simplified control approaches to deploy the building energy flexibility (BEF), here for the shifting of the space-heating load in a real-life educational building. The educational building is a passive house school where internal gains play an important role in the room thermal dynamics. It is equipped with a waterborne heat distribution system connected to district heating. The building is located in Elverum, Norway, having a strong heating-dominated climate. Focusing on schedule-based control strategies for pre-heating the building in the mornings, the study demonstrates significant load shifting to off-peak hours. The energy use during typical peak hours (7a.m. to 9a.m.) is reduced by 50% while the daily energy use is not increased significantly, highlighting the effectiveness of this simple approach. Occupant acceptance surveys among the pupils reveal no significant differences in thermal comfort perception between the periods with business-as-usual and schedule-based controls. Practical challenges in integrating simplified controls are highlighted and underscore the importance of considering energy flexibility during the building tendering and design phase. Bridging the gap between theoretical research and real-life applications, this research contributes to the advancement of energy-flexible operation of real-life buildings.
Currently there is intense research activity to improve energy efficiency in buildings. School buildings are among the most numerous of public buildings in Europe, most of them built several decades ...ago. This paper analyses the inclusion of good energy efficiency practices within a school buildings renovation and modernization programme as an opportunity to improve their energy performance, with a reduced cost of upgrading the buildings. It is developed within the framework of a regional programme to renovate the stock of school buildings in the South of Spain mild climate zone, which amount to more than 4500 schools, as representative of mild Mediterranean climate area with approximately 87,000 schools. It studies the impact of a set of affordable, passive refurbishment solutions to improve the envelope of school buildings (insulation, shading and glazing) in a reference baseline building model. The results show relatively low energy demands compared with those reported in equivalent schools in other climates, 19.6 kWh/m2 for cooling and 11.1 kWh/m2 for heating. A high potential for energy efficiency improvement, with savings up to 17.7% for heating and up to 15.9% for cooling is obtained by combining affordable passive actions with an investment cost of 146 €/m2.
•Passive refurbishment actions to improve Mediterranean school buildings efficiency.•A catalogue of actions on the building envelope analysed over a school design widely repeated.•Potential savings percentage up to 17.7 for heating and up to 15.9 for cooling.•Better improvement measures combination investment cost of 146 euros per square meter and execution in two months.•Potential carbon dioxide emissions savings of 9.5 tons per year and building.
A study is presented on the seismic fragility of a sample of 15 reinforced-concrete school buildings built between 1960 and 1980s in the province of Foggia, Southern Italy, for which near-perfect ...information is provided on geometrical and mechanical parameters. In particular, the focus is on the application of two probabilistic methods, employing different compromises in terms of complexity versus accuracy. First, a Eurocode 8 compatible nonlinear static approach is employed, which is augmented via the use of the regression expressions of the SPO2FRAG tool to incorporate record-to-record variability. Second, a nonlinear dynamic approach is used to directly account for record-to-record variability via a constrained multi-stripe analysis. In particular, in view of practitioners’ needs (analysis time, computational efforts, software used), a practical mode for application of the multi-stripe analyses is proposed, based on conducting few stripe analyses, in order to predict the behavior of structures in both the elastic and inelastic ranges of response. Both the static and the dynamic approaches are shown to be viable alternatives, offering fairly matching results at the individual building-level and even closer predictions at the level of ensemble regional fragility curves that incorporate both inter-building and intra-building uncertainties.
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