Passive cooling strategies to optimise sustainability and environmental ergonomics in Mediterranean schools based on a critical review

Abstract

This article identifies and compares the passive cooling strategies used and their relationship to optimising sustainability and environmental ergonomics based on 47 case studies. The analysis of the schools has resulted in the identification of 20 passive strategies, eight parameters related to sustainability and six related to environmental ergonomics. The results show that the most used passive strategies are natural ventilation, green roofs, low thermal transmittance windows and solar shading. In contrast, the least used strategies are ventilated façades and evaporative cooling systems. In terms of sustainability, energy efficiency is present in most case studies; in contrast, the circular economy is hardly considered in schools. In terms of environmental ergonomics, thermal comfort is present in most case studies, while acoustic comfort is not assessed. Furthermore, the results show an absence of optimisation of acoustic and visual comfort, climate change adaptation measures and involvement of the educational community. This work provides a detailed understanding of the status quo for researchers, practitioners and policymakers and predicts the dynamic directions of the field. It highlights the need to incorporate passive design protocols explicitly applied to schools to achieve a sustainable and climate-resilient educational building stock within the principles of the circular economy.