چكيده به لاتين
Auditory perception plays a crucial role in understanding the environment, communication, expressing thoughts, and learning. Suboptimal acoustic conditions in classrooms pose a significant barrier to student learning and academic progress, affecting concentration, listening, comprehension, and even reading. In educational buildings, effective sound design is key to enhancing acoustic comfort, well-being, and student productivity. Providing a suitable acoustic environment for students, especially at the elementary level, is of paramount importance and ensures a proper understanding of educational content.
In recent decades, attention to the acoustic conditions of classrooms has increased due to their critical role in ensuring effective teaching and learning, particularly at the foundational levels of education. Unfortunately, most classrooms in Iran, regardless of their level or type, lack the minimum acoustic requirements for optimal performance. This highlights the need for a comprehensive approach to acoustic control in educational facilities. Two primary strategies for this purpose include reducing background noise and controlling late sound reverberation. Defining an optimal design for classrooms, considering these two components, is a necessary step towards improving the quality of teaching and learning in the country's schools.
Few studies have investigated the impact of classroom dimensions as a limiting factor. This research examines the acoustic performance of an elementary school classroom in its current state. The aim of this study was to find suitable dimensions for the classroom to achieve desirable acoustic behavior and select the best configuration from two proposed design scenarios. For this research, an elementary school classroom in Hovaizeh, Tehran, was investigated. In this regard, Rhino software and Grasshopper and Pufferfish plugins were used for modeling and simulation. The multi-objective optimization process was performed using the Wallace plugin, which uses a non-dominated genetic algorithm. This optimization was carried out in two stages. Classroom length, width, height, and window length and width were selected as independent variables, and reverberation time, speech transmission index, and speech clarity were selected as dependent variables for this research.
In both studies, a multi-objective optimization method with 500 states was used to find the optimal dimensions of the classroom and window level for elementary schools. In the first and second stages, 1 and 4 solutions were selected as a set of optimal solutions in the Pareto front, respectively, and finally, one solution was selected as the best solutions.
The optimization process involved the use of genetic algorithms, parametric design, and acoustic simulation. This process automatically examined various permutations of designs and simultaneously evaluated different parameters. Finally, from the five sets of answers, the appropriate ratio of classroom dimensions and optimal window level for elementary schools was obtained. The findings of this research can be used to develop classroom acoustic guidelines for better learning of students under the age of 12
