A green school for Gaza: Design and thermal performance evaluation.

This paper describes the design and thermal performance evaluation of the first low carbon school building in Palestine. The project is a response to the mounting environmental, energy and infrastructure crisis within the Gaza Strip. The ambition is to provide a better learning environment for the children of Gaza, while also being self reliant in terms of electricity and water requirements. The project has been developed in close collaboration with UNRWA. The school, located in the Khan Younis refugee camp, will host 32 classrooms distributed on three floors for a total capacity of 2050 children divided in two shifts. It relies almost entirely on passive strategies to achieve thermal comfort within the classrooms through the year. The roof is formed from a lightweight external ‘parasol’ shading a concrete deck below. Cylindrical concrete columns contain vertical ventilation shafts leading into solar chimneys at roof level. The classrooms are arranged around a large central shaded courtyard, which provides diffuse daylight and fresh air. The classrooms are naturally ventilated by a combination of cross and stack ventilation via the solar chimneys. The façade presents a high window-to-wall ratio and a series of large Mashrabiyas to reduce the incidence of direct solar radiation in the classrooms. Dynamic thermal performance analysis evaluated the effect of the proposed strategies on temperatures in the occupied classrooms during summer and winter. The study concludes that mechanical cooling of classrooms can be eliminated, and that space heating demand is reduced to below 10kWh/sqm.yr. The residual electricity demand for lighting and power can all be met from the PV installation on the roof of the building. The project is currently under construction and the UNRWA intends to measure temperatures and energy consumption within the building and will report in a future paper on performance in-use