Retrofitting school building envelope in order to enhance sustainable school architecture: Case study of Shiraz city

Residential buildings consume 40% of the world’s annual energy consumption, where the efficient utilization of the energy is significantly affected by residents’ understanding of proper energy conservation techniques. Hence, raising the understanding of the society about the proper ways of energy consumption is necessary. This can be achieved by providing the relevant education in the school system to familiarize young students with proper ways of energy conservation; for example, by incorporating sustainable design schemes based on energy conservation at the school environment and buildings. This would facilitate observational learning among students besides conserving significant energy at school buildings. Among the various factors influential on the sustainability, in this paper, we focus on the climatic design. The aim of this article was two folds: First, to improve the energy efficiency of a school building in Shirāz through retrofitting the building envelops; and second, to justify the necessity of utilizing passive design in buildings. For this purpose, we performed quantitative simulations to assess the heat dissipation in a school building which we chose as the sample. The Ecotect software was used to develop a model. In this case study, the research population consisted of the listed schools designed by Fārs Province School Renovation Organization based on hot-arid climate plan. The research sample was a type 1926-2, six-classroom primary school in Shirāz which was chosen based on a non-stochastic sampling method. The effect of using heat insulators in the building’s envelopes on energy conservation efficiency was assessed. The results demonstrated that two times increase in the duration of the comfort zone can be achieved by retrofitting the building envelopes.