Total building performance evaluation of academic institution in Singapore

Abstract

Over the years, the concept of total building performance and its application to commercial and residential buildings has been of great interest among researchers in this field. In a country such as Singapore, whose society is paying increasing attention to paper qualifications, the evaluation of academic institutions using this concept may provide a gateway to critical issues related to the learning environment. In an attempt to understand the conduciveness of classroom environments towards learning, a study is done to investigate the performance of classrooms in a typical secondary school in Singapore. Performance is indicated by the measurement and evaluation of six mandates, namely thermal, spatial, visual, acoustic, indoor air quality, and building integrity. The usage of both objective and subjective methods gave rise to interesting and sometimes conflicting results with regards to the classrooms' performance. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.