Monitoring of indoor environmental quality and acoustic comfort in university classrooms

Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) in university classrooms affects students’ well-being, comfort and learning performance, thus its evaluation is strongly needed. This work presents an in-field study on the acoustic monitoring, along with thermal, visual and air quality domains, in four recently built university classrooms of Politecnico di Torino. The monitoring was performed in the spring/summer and winter periods, through wall mounted multi-sensor devices. While the monitoring was ongoing, students attending lessons were asked to answer an online anonymous questionnaire on comfort perception, which included questions regarding the four domains and additional personal information. Results show that students are more satisfied with the overall conditions in classroom 3P and more dissatisfied with the overall conditions in classroom 4P. The less satisfying domains are the thermal and air quality ones, whereas the more satisfying are the acoustic and visual ones. Furthermore, at the increasing of TVOC and CO2 concentrations the overall satisfaction decreases. The final aim of this project, based on the monitoring results, is the optimization of the building systems management to reduce energy consumptions and ensure occupants’ well-being and comfort.