A Post-Occupancy Evaluation of a Low Energy School (City Academy) in the UK

Abstract

The UK construction industry is beginning to take notice of Post Occupancy Evaluations (POE) of completed buildings. POE studies have found that actual energy consumption in buildings often bears no resemblance to design predictions and low-level comfort problems persist. In the UK, there are a growing number of supporters for the routine use of POE in the construction industry. This paper discusses the in-use performance of an Advanced Naturally Ventilated secondary school building in the UK. The building features open plan classrooms, night cooling and automatically controlled solar shading and ventilation openings. The study includes (a) long term monitoring of the thermal environment in classrooms, (b) short term analysis of environmental conditions and (c) parametric analysis of environmental conditions using advanced thermal modelling. Monitored data indicates that the summertime overheating criteria was achieved using the night cooling strategy and that the open plan classrooms achieved very good Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). However it was noted that there was a trade off between the IAQ and the acoustic environment. It was found that the internal environment on the second floor could be improved significantly by controlling sky-light openings using information about wind direction. The information from the study is being fed back to the design team and findings incorporated in future projects.