Indoor Environmental Quality And Architectural Design For Autistic Schools

As a widespread developmental disorder,autism is receiving widespread attention nowadays.Special education schools for autistic children provide rehabilitation and education environment for these children.Environmental quality is an important factor affecting students’academic performance and learning ability,especially for the sensitive group of autistic children.Therefore,the design of special education schools for autistic children to improve environmental quality has become an urgent research topic.The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of campus environmental quality on autistic children,and to study the architectural design methods to enhance the environmental quality of autistic school.This study firstly summarized the effects of environmental quality on learning ability and behavioral performance of autistic children based on their physiological and psychological particularities and their response to environmental quality.Based on the conclusion of literature review,this paper also studied an autistic school by means of indoor environmental quality measurement and behavioral investigation of autistic children,focusing on the effects of indoor air quality and thermal comfort.The results showed that the indoor air temperature of the selected classrooms was high and the CO₂ concentration exceeded the standard.The correlation between indoor environmental quality and performance of autistic children was most obvious between CO₂ concentration and the number of occurrences of problem behaviors,and the regression index was 0.5088.The impact of other environmental quality on autistic children was summarized through literature review.This paper also made a comparative study on the design codes of special education schools for autistic children in China and Britain,and puts forward specific design suggestions for the selected school.Simulation of the indoor environmental quality was also made before and after the renovation.Based on the research conclusions,the design suggestions for autistic schools include:adequate ventilation,avoidance of excessive indoor temperature caused by direct sunlight,selection of good building orientation and control of pollutants,etc.Finally,this paper summarizes the limitations of this study and suggestions for further research.The conclusion of this paper will put forward some design suggestions for autistic school and make some efforts for the build of design guidelines.