Clearing the air on EU guidance projects for school buildings

Professionals engaged in the design of new or retrofit of existing school buildings currently struggle to find comprehensive guidelines for achieving healthy and energy-efficient school environments. Recently, two major and independent research projects aimed at improving indoor environmental quality and energy performance of school buildings in Europe have been completed: SINPHONIE and School of the Future. Their guidelines reflect the distinct priorities and limited scope of each project. This paper compares for the first time and, as far as possible, synthesizes these outputs to facilitate their use in practice and research. Overall, SINPHONIE is most useful in addressing indoor environmental quality of schools in terms of the physical, chemical and microbiological stressors that impact and potentially affect human health. It aims to influence the future development of policy and regulations. By contrast, School of the Future presents a broader design-oriented approach based on best practice in four European countries. For the most part they complement each other in their recommendations; however, this review highlights several areas that require further clarification and research including links between indoor environmental quality and cognitive performance, the consequent appropriate level for the designed ventilation rate, and the role of adaptive thermal comfort in schools.