Abstract
This article addresses the topic of environmental comfort from a salutogenic and pedagogical point of view. It begins by presenting a wide framework aimed at describing the complexity and specificity of the acoustic issue and the need to integrate decibel-based metrics with knowledge and reflections which are inherent to non-measurable factors. The article then focuses its attention on educational spaces and presents the results of an investigation carried out in 52 classrooms of 19 primary schools in Florence. From this research and keeping in mind the current Italian legislation, the following results are deduced: (1) the layout of a typical classroom, (2) the average reverberation time and (3) the sound-absorbing surface required to improve the acoustic quality of the typical classroom with polystyrene fibre panels. Subsequently, after having briefly described the more appropriate typology of sound-absorbing solutions, a system for the acoustic correction of classrooms is presented. This system is composed of two parts. The first part is fixed and its realisation is entrusted to specialised personnel; the second, based on the concept of personalisation and transformation of the educational space, is modifiable through time and designed and applied by the students themselves.
Highlights
ISO 28,802 regulations [1] encourage the study of environmental comfort through the consideration of both the material measures of the space and the subjective responses of the inhabitants, the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) is mostly analysed in terms of “measurable” material factors
Some studies have demonstrated the correlation between the acoustic quality of school classrooms and the level of performance of students [59,60]
The first phase concerns the gathering of knowledge regarding the phenomenon in question and is based on “traditional” measuring methods for determining the typical acoustic response of classrooms belonging to various typologies of primary school buildings
Summary
ISO 28,802 regulations [1] encourage the study of environmental comfort through the consideration of both the material measures of the space and the subjective responses of the inhabitants, the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) is mostly analysed in terms of “measurable” material factors (indoor air quality, thermal, acoustic and lighting parameters). As our shared experience suggests, and the studies on the healing environment initiated by Ulrich [6] seem to confirm, non-measurable factors (such as the capacity to understand and control the context, the sense of orientation, the capacity to manage situations of environmental stress, etc.) play an important part in the determination of environmental comfort as measurable factors They play a relevant role in the understanding and enhancement of the semantic, psychological, behavioural and social dimensions of dwelling [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. Since the response to environmental stimuli is subjective, nothing guarantees that the respect of performance standards contemplated by rules and regulations can ensure the wellbeing of every person [23,37]
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