Multicriteria Design: Optimizing Thermal, Acoustic, and Visual Comfort and Indoor Air Quality in Classrooms

Book chapter, 2023

Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) is a crucial for ensuring comfortable and healthy indoor spaces, and it is influenced by four primary factors: thermal comfort, acoustic comfort, visual comfort, and air quality. These aspects have a combined influence on the overall perception of comfort, and therefore, need to be assessed with a holistic approach. This chapter presents design strategies that would generate the indoor environmental conditions needed to ensure IEQ in school classrooms in the Global South. First, the design strategies are identified and classified for each aspect of IEQ based on a literature review. Then they are organized, and conflicting design strategies are identified. Finally, a design workflow for the incorporation of passive design strategies in school classrooms is presented.