Ninth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

In Algeria, schools are considered as public tertiary buildings with a variety of architectural style. Unfortunately, school buildings are not adapted to any thermal or energy requirements in the design process. In the classrooms, the thermal environment causes the users’ stress due to the high occupancy rates. Since the school building is the place of the educational process, it is important to create favorable environmental conditions to ensure a high quality of education. The city of Biskra, where a hot and arid climate prevails, faces thermal environment issues as: hot solar radiation, insulation exposure and long overheating period, etc. In schools, it is difficult to achieve an adequate thermal comfort without the recourse to mechanical systems which increase the energy consumption. The present study proposes the evaluation of the thermal comfort degrees in a typical classroom of a middle school. To reach our objectives, the software DesignBuilder V5.5 has been used for a qualitative assessment and a subjective survey for qualitative evaluation. The results show that the majority of occupants were thermally uncomfortable during the whole school year. Therefore an adapted school building design is needed in the hot and dry climate where the main challenge is to limit thermal discomfort due to the large variations in temperatures during summer without the need of air conditioning shading systems can improve the interior comfort by limiting solar gains.