Azadeh Montazami

• PhD
• Research Associate at Coventry University

Thermal comfort in schools affects children’s wellbeing and educational outcomes. Global warming and frequent heatwaves have worsened the overheating issue in schools, especially in Western European countries, like the UK. While previous studies have mainly focused on residential and commercial buildings, school-related research often emphasised in...

This paper examines occupants’ satisfaction of three BREEAM excellent certified buildings at Coventry University in the UK. Occupants’ satisfaction is evaluated against passive and active sustainable approaches used in these buildings to improve Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ). This paper adopts a quantitative approach by running a seven-point r...

Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) is grouped into four main categories: thermal comfort, indoor air quality (IAQ), visual and acoustic comfort. Individual aspects of IEQ are investigated to examine their impact on children's overall comfort in primary schools in the UK. This study has surveyed 805 children in 32 naturally ventilated classrooms durin...

Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in classrooms has a significant impact on children’s academic performance, health and well‐being, therefore, understanding children’s perception of IAQ is vital. This study investigates how children’s perception of IAQ is affected by environmental variables and thermal sensation. In total, 29 naturally‐ventilated classrooms...

Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in classrooms is assessed by CO2 levels and Ventilation Rates (VRs). Factors affecting VRs fall into Contextual, Occupant and Building (COB) related factors. This study investigates how VRs are affected by COB factors in 29 naturally-ventilated classrooms in the UK during Non-Heating and Heating seasons. Building-related fa...

The higher education sector in the UK is responsible for large amount of the country's energy consumption. Space heating, which is the largest and most expensive part of the energy used in the UK educational buildings is a potential target for improving energy efficiency. However, the role of thermal comfort in students' productivity in academic en...

Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is affected by Context, Occupant and Building (COB) related factors. This paper evaluates IAQ as a function of occupant-related factors including occupants’ Adaptive Behaviours (ABs), occupancy patterns, occupant’s CO2 generation rates and occupancy density. This study observed occupant-related factors of 805 children in 29...

People's subjective response to any thermal environment is commonly investigated by using rating scales describing the degree of thermal sensation, comfort, and acceptability. Subsequent analyses of results collected in this way rely on the assumption that specific distances between verbal anchors placed on the scale exist and that relationships be...

Maintaining the thermal comfort of occupants along with minimising the related energy consumption is necessary in educational buildings in the UK. Thermal comfort is particularly important in this context as it affects how well students learn in the classroom. This study aims to identify comfort temperature ranges in different classroom types, lect...

This paper aims to study children's thermal comfort and related Adaptive Behaviours in UK primary schools. The study was carried out in 32 naturally-ventilated classrooms during Non-Heating (NH) and Heating (H) seasons. Alongside collecting environmental data, a self-reported questionnaire and an observation form were employed to record children's...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Thermal discomfort is one of the main triggers for occupants’ interactions with components of the built environment such as adjustments of thermostats and/or opening windows and strongly related to the energy use in buildings. Understanding causes for thermal (dis-)comfort is crucial for design and operation of any type of building. The assessment...

Adaptive behaviour impacts the classroom's environment and the student's comfort. Therefore, a deep understanding of students' adaptive behaviour is required. This study aims to develop a valid and reliable method to realize how children in their late middle childhood (9–11) practise adaptive behaviours as a response to the classroom's Indoor Envir...

Adaptive behaviour has a significant impact on the quality of indoor environment, comfort, and energy consumption. Therefore, facilitating positive occupant behaviours will improve these three factors. The aim of this paper is to develop a design framework that can be used as part of the design process to facilitate adaptive behaviours. This paper...

To improve the quality of school environment and reach state of comfort, it’s important that teachers and students take appropriate personal and environmental adaptive behaviours. Studies on adaptive behaviours are mainly focused on adults, especially in residential and office buildings while children’s adaptive behaviours at schools are not largel...

Statistics regarding the number of international students in the UK higher educational buildings show an upward trend in the recent years. These students coming from different cultural and climatic backgrounds have various thermal perceptions inside the classrooms. According to the significant influence of thermal quality of learning environments o...

The quality of educational buildings can considerably affect teaching and learning processes. Literature shows that there is a significant relationship between students’ thermal perception and their performance. The UK higher education buildings host many students from all over the world who have diverse backgrounds, perceptions and preferences tow...

This study investigates whether children's thermal perception at home and their dominant behaviour to achieve thermal comfort are related to their socio-economic background and contribute to their thermal perception at school. The indoor operative temperatures of 27 classrooms were collected during the cooling season of 2014–2015 from eight primary...

There is a direct link between the attainment of children at school and the thermal conditions in classrooms and there are guidelines in place to help designers provide the most effective thermal conditions. However, results from thermal comfort surveys and the collection of the perception of 662 pupils, aged between 8 and 11 in 27 naturally ventil...

Fig: Average CO 2 concentration plotted against average outdoor temperature for the occupied hours, for 3 classrooms Research summary A number of studies argued that poor indoor air quality (IAQ) in primary school classrooms can have a measurable impact on the concentration and learning ability of pupils (Bakó-Biró et al, 2012). As children's acade...

REtrofitting Solutions and Services for the enhancement of Energy Efficiency in Public Edification (RESSEEPE) is an EU funded project that focuses on the refurbishment of existing public buildings in Three European cities. The aim of the project is to bring together design and decision making tools and innovative building fabric manufacturers to co...

The study investigates differences in occupants' satisfaction in three office buildings meeting different levels of LEED certification in Jordan during the summer of 2012. This study is carried out based on post occupancy evaluation to measure occupants' perceptions of the internal environment, control over internal environment and also its impact...

Providing thermal comfort in schools has a significant impact on students' performance and health. Climate change may result in an increased risk of overheating. A clear understanding and definition of overheating in schools is needed. Overheating can occur for various reasons. In order to deal with the problem realistically, it is necessary to hav...

The main source of ventilation in the majority of UK schools is windows. The occupants of the classroom (i.e. pupils and teachers) in noisy areas tend to shut windows especially during quiet activities (i.e. silent and lecturing activities) to reduce the effect on teaching of aircraft noise as well as other external noises. Closing windows has two...

Schools' buildings can have a significant impact on students and teachers' health and performance through their internal environment such as noise level, indoor temperature, air quality and light. Providing good environmental conditions for schools has always been critical. The two main reasons are: firstly of the conflict between comfort factors (...