Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
2.4 School Buildings
Historically school buildings seem to have suffered from deficient maintenance
resulting in poor indoor climates (Limb
1997
). Restricted budgets and continuous
operation of a school argue for limiting the school closing time. Furthermore, high
levels of noise and local air pollution during construction can be incompatible with
school activities. Schools are buildings with specific requirements and properties
for operation; this is especially true for their schedules of use, with varying lengths
of time during which they are not occupied inducing fast changing internal loads.
Loads that change quickly require fast responses from a building and its sys-
tems in order to respond well in handling air moisture and pollutants, in providing
fresh air, and in keeping thermal comfort while energy demand is kept low.
Therefore, in Passivhaus design, there is high interest and focus on IAQ and indoor
environment quality (IEQ). It is worth noting that, based on experience, the PHPP
recommendation for ventilation is to provide 15-20 m
3
/h of fresh air per school
pupil (Feist
2007
). These values are adapted to the various room types with their
different usages and needs as found in the context of a school building. Lighting is
also given special attention: optimised use of daylight and provision for solar
protection to avoid blending and overheating are evaluated as an integral part of
the Passivhaus concept. For the scope of our research, the focus is on certain
important features of the Passivhaus concept: the envelope, air tightness, thermal
bridge reduction and ventilation strategies.
A school building is constructed and designed to allow education, where the
qualities are defined according to, or derived from, national requirements. A
school building usually includes conventional classrooms, special dedicated rooms
and workshops, meeting rooms, halls, toilets, and eventually a kitchen and res-
taurant, offices, sports hall and showers. As for all categories of building, it is
assumed that a good indoor climate is a prerequisite, and that good IAQ and
thermal comfort are required. For school buildings, clear requirements for daylight
and acoustic comfort are given and schedules usually include limited or no activity
on evenings, weekends and holidays. The Passivhaus standard has demonstrated its
applicability to school buildings (Bretzke
2009
; Feist et al.
2006
), and is therefore
widely used for new school constructions as well as upgrading.
3 Methodology
3.1 Approach
The methodological approach used for this research can be termed a descriptive
multiple-case study as described by Robert K. Yin in his topic
Case Study
Research
(Yin
2008
). The case study provides a means of systematic and in-
depth studies on how Passivhaus retrofits of schools in Austria are achieved,
identifying the common elements of the cases, and discussing the differences.
