ABSTRACT
The thermal, acoustical, visual and indoor air environment in classrooms has a significant role relative to students’ behaviour and performance.
This work shows the results of a research project focused on environmental comfort investigations in university classrooms, analysing all the environmental factors (thermal, acoustic, visual and IAQ) which contribute to the well being of occupants.
Objects of the study were four university classrooms of the Politecnico di Torino, Italy, representative of typical medium sized classroom, monitored during spring season.
A field campaign, consisting of measurements of comfort parameters and subjective surveys, was performed during the students regular class time.
Thermal comfort was qualified in terms of its acceptability, preference and thermal sensation scale, while IAQ was investigated in terms of air pleasantness and odour perception. As far as acoustic comfort is concerned, the research was focused on noise annoyance and speech communication assessment. Visual comfort aspects were analysed both in terms of light quantity and quality.
Subjective answers aimed also to highlight the specific factors which can influence each environmental quality aspects and the possible dependence of judgements from factors that are not directly considered in the comfort indices determination. In fact, such indices are defined through laboratory tests in which all aspects influencing the subjective answers are strictly and “artificially” controlled.
Moreover the study was aimed at finding out the possible correlations among the different comfort aspects and the relationships between these latter and the overall comfort perceived by occupants.
