Verification of the Adequacy of the Portuguese Sustainability Assessment Tool of High School Buildings, SAHSBPT, to the Francisco de Holanda High School, Guimarães

Abstract

Sustainable development can be achieved through several activities. The building and construction sector (B & C sector) is one of the major industries, and it can play a crucial role in the improvement of the most relevant environmental impacts. Nowadays, there are major concerns related to sustainability in construction. All types of buildings have different technical aspects; therefore, it is required to develop specific sustainability assessment tools. A school building has peculiarities connected to aspects of sustainability, as it is a building planned to offer adequate environments for the education of adolescents and children. This article shows the application of the SBTool methodology developed specifically for Portuguese high schools, SAHSBPT (Sustainable Assessment for High School Buildings) methodology, that is being elaborated by the first author in her PhD Thesis. This methodology allows architects, engineers and designers to improve sustainability in school buildings, in projects or in the rehabilitation of buildings. The objective of this research is to apply that evaluation tool in order to verify the efficiency of this methodology, as well as to recognize the level of sustainability of the Francisco de Holanda High School Building, in Guimarães, Portugal. The values found in the application of the Sustainable Assessment for High School Buildings in that high schools demonstrate a good result, as the overall value is A, 75% of the total result.

Development of design quality indicators for public school facilities

“…Buildings designed to be sustainable have been favored by owners, especially, as they reduce operational costs by reducing the consumption of electricity and water (Wong et al , 2010). Sustainable building concepts include achieving a healthy environment inside the building, choosing environment-friendly materials, using modern technology such as building management system (BMS) for energy efficiency of the building, recycling water for continuous usage and using sensors and others devices for intelligent activities within the building (Saraiva et al , 2019).…”

“…Six DQIs were included for the multipurpose hall. Experts suggested the inclusion of two (Brkovic et al, 2015;El-Feki and Saleh, 2018;Saraiva et al, 2019) 20.…”