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School establishments have been considered the foundation of various civilizations, due to the importance of the educational process in producing future generations and shaping healthy societies. This paper aims to evaluate the thermal comfort sensation of pupils in school buildings under hostile climatic conditions in hot arid regions. The study employed the use of the post-occupancy approach with subjective assessments through questionnaires and physical measurements of the environmental physical parameters of thermal comfort: temperature, relative humidity, and air velocity as objective assessments. These measurements were in parallel with survey questionnaires that were undertaken during regular class sessions covering the hot and cold conditions of a school year, polling responses from 281 participants on their perception of the indoor climate. Finger's comfort indicators are calculated (PMV, predicted mean vote; and PPD, predicted percentage of dissatisfied people); and the actual people's clothing and metabolic rate are estimated in order to conclude the prevailing indoor thermal conditions. The investigations were carried out on three samples of school buildings in Biskra (Algeria) of different architectural styles. The study’s results revealed that the levels of temperature were the most crucial parameter that influenced the thermal sensation with an average of 35C° with a PMV of 2.48, and 15C° in winter with a PMV of -2.56, indicating more than 90% dissatisfaction. Therefore, a well-thought bioclimatic school design is needed to ensure acceptable indoors, and promote healthy and safe learning spaces, by adopting sustainable design principles and low-energy-consuming techniques.

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This article examines the indicators of residents' needs for thermal comfort in public spaces. Our hypothesis focuses on the extent to which high temperatures are associated with the use of public spaces by different age groups of the population. The public squares that distinguish the urban areas of the case study were selected based on their importance and location in the city center. The research methodology is based on numerous research techniques: in situ measurements, observation schemes and questionnaires. The most important results obtained for a better design of the public square must be adapted to the needs of the user taking into account essential elements such as the quality of the equipment of the place, the type and density of the vegetation, the inclusion of water bodies and the perception of the inhabitants...etc, in addition to giving importance and highlighting the social and cultural aspects and the identity of the region.

The present research aims to study the effectiveness of the envelope components of colonial dwellings in maintaining a comfortable indoor thermal environment. In hot and dry areas, extreme outdoor air temperatures compel designers to provide a better indoor thermal condition which remains a rather delicate task to achieve such as in the case of the city of Biskra. The heritage buildings were constructed in the colonial period in the Biskra region; the colonial district buildings are built with local materials such as mud bricks and stones that have a large thermal mass; these materials are the main component of the walls of the outer exterior skin. Onsite measurement campaigns were carried out to record air temperatures inside the inhabited area for 24 hours. Thereafter, the collected data were compared with the outdoor air temperatures to assess the effect of the envelope impact on the temperature variation. The important results remain in the envelope’s crucial effect to achieve thermal comfort using local materials with a high thermal mass.