A Review of Indoor Air Quality and Thermal Comfort Guidelines for New Zealand Primary School Classrooms: A Comparison of DQLS Document (Old Versus New)

Multiple health-related illnesses are associated with poor air quality in schools, especially for young children. Research shows that children aged 5–8 years are highly susceptible to indoor air pollution due to their smaller body mass index. Apart from their homes, schools are a common source of inhaled indoor air pollution and have been linked to children’s impaired performance. In New Zealand, the Ministry of Education, Designing Quality Learning Spaces (DQLS) Indoor Air Quality and Thermal Comfort Version 2.0 guideline provides performance requirements for learning spaces in new and older school buildings. The DQLS guidelines focus on specific design aspects that target learning spaces’ usability, ventilation, heating and cooling, daylight, and acoustic design. It aims to provide a standard code of practice that enhances Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), ventilation, and thermal comfort in school buildings across the country. With the advent of COVID-19 in New Zealand in 2020, the 2017 version was updated to the current 2020 version. This paper critically compared the two versions of the DQLS, focusing on the IAQ and Thermal comfort requirements. The aim is to ascertain the appropriateness of the updated 2022 DQLS version in providing a classroom environment that prevents the spread of diseases and improves performance. The findings show that there has been a significant change between the 2017 and 2022 versions. The changes incorporated in the latest version 2.0, 2022, include temperature, relative humidity, carbon dioxide, ventilation rate, window-to-wall ratio. In version 1.0, released in the year 2017, focused on teaching style and adaptable learning spaces in making it fit. However, in the latest Version 2.0, 2022 made an update to the document and aligned it with—the School Property Strategy 2030 program. The updated document separated the mandatory requirement from the design guidelines and focused on improving the performance by enhancing the requirement for Indoor Air Quality, Thermal Comfort, and more delivery of fresh air within the classroom. Another change incorporated is the addition of recommendations for overheating, ventilation and cooling based on climate and improvement with insulation requirements based on different climate zones, and the last inclusion of the methodologies to check whether the design matches to built standards. These changes, if incorporated in the design and management of the IAQ and Thermal Comfort in New Zealand Classrooms, have the potential to provide quality indoor air and thermal comfort, reducing the spread of diseases and improving school children’s performance. This study offers valuable insights and recommendations toward the practicality of the requirements in the DQLS version 2.0, 2022, by comparing it with the DQLS version 1.0, 2017. The outcome of this study will be helpful for school building designers and architects in understanding and implementing the new IAQ, Ventilation, and Thermal Comfort requirements for designing schools across the country. Thus ensuring the provision of optimal IAQ, ventilation, and thermal comfort requirements for school children.