Post-Occupancy Evaluation of Lighting Quality in Classrooms

Abstract

Daylighting is a sensory and visual element, it is a major challenge for school designers and is of interest to the category of school children in the phase of body construction considered fragile. Knowing that lighting in classrooms affects reading, writing, participation in educational tasks, perception, experience and behavior in space, and brings to the child a sense of well-being and comfort. Therefore, it preserves his psychological and physical health, in other words, it provides a comfortable visual environment that depends mainly on the quantity and quality of natural light allowed in the classroom with a strict control of glare.

The main objective of this paper is to assess the daylighting in classrooms chosen as a typical sample, adopting the post-occupancy evaluation approach associated with the questionnaire technique. In the research framework, the post-occupancy evaluation is focused on the static lighting parameters, analyzing the effect and contribution of the orientations in relation to the window configurations to evaluate, subsequently, their effects on the daylight performance in the classrooms, in order to provide appropriate solutions to the problems raised.

The results obtained show that the orientation and configuration of classroom openings affect the daylighting inside these spaces; this was observed during the movement of the sun throughout the day. The results also showed that some orientations perform better than others, while it is possible to improve the level of illumination for non-conforming spaces and eliminate glare through architectural treatments.