Keywords: school classroom, daylighting, luminance, spectrum, color rendering index.

A proper use of daylighting is an important factor that influences the learning performance and sight of students. In school buildings, daylighting is important to promote the physical health of the students, and improving the indoor environment with such advantages as work efficiency enhancement, and the improvement of quality of life [1,2]. However, since most current educational facilities do not have systematic plan for daylighting and wide windows are used to penetrate daylight, these wide windows cause imbalances in illuminance in classrooms or glares, thus making the classrooms unpleasant or decreasing the learning efficiency [3]. It is necessary to study the characteristics of the luminous environment according to the orientation of the classrooms. Therefore, this study aims to compare the characteristics of daylight environment of classrooms oriented toward north and south.

Measuring the illuminace of the workspace three times a day, the illuminance of the middle part and aisle side of the northward classroom and that of the aisle side of southward classroom were measured 300 lx or less, which falls short of the required standard. The luminance ratio of the blackboard in the southward classroom was 2.7 times the value of the northward classroom. Evaluating from the viewpoint of visible light spectrum distribution, the amount of penetrated daylight in the southward classroom was 2.7 times the amount of the northward classroom on average. The colour rendering index (CRI) measured at all three spots was over 80 Ra, and as the southward classroom achieved a better CRI than the northward classroom at the blackboard area. It is expected that original colours will be better revealed at the blackboard in the southward classroom.

As a result of analyzing the daylight environment in the two classrooms, the southward classroom was evaluated to be better in all terms. The northward classrooms must be included for efficient use of space and proper measures are necessary to make up for such a disadvantageous daylight environment.

1

K.E. Park, J.T. Kim, "A study on the Characteristics of Luminous Environment in Classroom of An Elementary School", The Society of Air-conditioning and Refrigerating Engineers of Korea, 530-535, 2001. (in Korean)

2

J.Y. Lee, K.D. Song, "Developing an Anidolic Ceiling System to Improve Luminous Environment in School Classrooms - Focused on illuminance Levels and Uniformity", Architectural Institute of Korea, 26(11), 327-338, 2010. (in Korean)

3

O. Kim, E.K. Rhee, "A Study on the Evaluation and Improvement of Luminous Environment in Schools", The Korean Solar Energy Society, 231-236, 2006. (in Korean)

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