Parametric Configuration and Comfort Parameters for Dynamic Learning Spaces

A role of social improvement driver has been assigned to schools endorsing new concepts of learning methods, classroom organizations, digital tools and custom paths defined by the abilities and attitudes of the students aiming in enhancing their learning performance. Pupils in primary schools usually have a relatively fixed learning space for most of their time and they build up a considerable familiarity with their classroom. Furthermore, in existing schools, it is possible to vary the classroom configuration for individual, collective or grouped study; however, the flexibility is strictly related to structural and economic constraints. The analyses performed on different schools (different both in architecture and in family income) in UK showed that the progress of pupils is relevant at classroom level (45%) whereas at school level a little difference has been reported (3%). Extensive studies about the parameters of the educational buildings and spaces that can be favorable for the learning progress indicate specific design principles for quality such as: (1) Naturalness, (2) Individualization, (3) Level of stimulation. These parameters count for a 16% of the variation in pupils’ academic upgrading and a 50% is due to Naturalness’s parameters. The paper deals with these parameters in a classroom used as a test cell to assess dynamic configuration using the parametric add-in Dynamo to define parametrically the aggregation of the furniture to enable the changing learning schedules in the classroom. Parametric rules define the different configurations and outline thermal, visual and acoustic scenarios in the learning space. Topics like thermal comfort, glare and reverberation time become key issues and indoor air quality has to be verified when the aggregation of pupils from different classrooms occurs. Comfort levels are evaluated exporting information from the BIM model to energy software able to define the thermal and visual quality. The multilevel analysis of the space can be extended to segments of the school facilities to deliver guidelines and main strategies to advance the existing school facilities learning conditions.