Early Stage Design Decisions: The Role of Pre-Natural Ventilation Considerations in VOCs Emissions Mitigation in Educational Buildings

Abstract

It is common that schools are designed to achieve the highest performance with the lowest cost regardless of any health considerations. Educational indoor environments have already been of particular public concern, as children have greater susceptibility to environmental pollutants than adults. It has been known that VOCs emissions dilution from finishing materials via ventilation is a straightforward and common approach. So, natural ventilation enhancement should be considered in the Early-Stage design from the site considerations to even window configurations. So, the thesis approach is to find out to what extent the Early-Stage design concerning the natural ventilation is effective on mitigation of VOCs concentration levels. Throughout the analysis of educational spaces in Glory international school in Mansoura, a classroom with west orientation will be chosen to be analyzed and compared with LEED standard concerning TVOCs concentration to find out the threat levels. There is an attitude to imagine the base case of the western classroom in different radical scenarios in the school design. These radical scenarios will be inapplicable to the base case as the architectural consequences are enormous. These scenarios will be simulated to find out the TVOCs concentration results in comparison with the base case and LEED standards.