The New Saint Theresa College Tandag City : a thermally comfortable school campus through passive cooling and bioclimatic architecture : an application of the assessment of ventilation performance of awning and jalousie windows in the high school classrooms of Saint Theresa College Tandag City

Abstract

Classrooms in the Philippines are mostly built on economical standardized designs. One of these economic constraints is using windows such as jalousies and awning windows. With this economic approach in mind, the indoor environmental quality of classrooms is often overlooked in the country. The study will determine if the air velocity of naturally ventilated classrooms with awnings and jalousie windows can provide acceptable ventilation rates based on ASHRAE 55 (2017) Standards. The study used a quantitative research method and collected data from site measurements and student surveys. Site measurement data were assessed by t-testing to test whether the commonly used classroom windows perform within, below, or above the preferred ventilation rate ranges by ASHRAE and identify whether one of the window types performs better than the other. The results show that classrooms fitted with both windows performed within the ASHRAE range, with jalousie having a mean air velocity of !!=0.25m/s and jalousie windows having a mean air velocity of !!=0.63m/s. However, the air temperature performance of both windows was above the ASHRAE range by a considerable margin. Students rated the classrooms with jalousie windows as "averagely windy" and "slightly cool" and rated the classrooms with awning windows as "okay but less windy" and "neutral" in thermal performance. The test results showed a significant difference between the two windows, with the jalousie windows performing 39.6% better than awning windows in air velocity and 2.29% in air temperature. In terms of orientation, the school’s classroom windows that were facing northwest performed significantly better than windows facing northeast.