Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone Project / There is a worldwide movement towards sustainability. A stepping-stone towards a sustainability conscience population starts in the education of the younger generation. Focusing on improving education specifically in middle schools in arid regions regarding sustainability will shift and shape youths’ interests and lifestyles into an educated community. This sustainability conscience community will continue to make moral sustainable decisions in their future endeavors. The curriculum implemented will reduce the dropout rate because it is a hand-on curriculum that is interesting and enjoyable for kids. The focus of the curriculum is to rely on outdoor activities to create an outdoor learning environment. The curriculum is based on three different sections: 1) campus-wide adaptable strategies implemented by the students, 2) long term investments implemented by professionals, 3) and hands-on activities that will encourage students to go outdoors and experience real-life problems. To create this education system, the author will propose design guidelines and applications that will be used to improve middle schools particularly in arid regions to become “Green Schools”. This program will validate the sustainable strategies, projects, and efforts done at schools and will also market their school as a model to follow. This will explain what it takes to become a Green School in arid regions and how to achieve these standards.

abstract: Improving the conditions of schools in many parts of the world is gradually acquiring importance. The Green School movement is an integral part of this effort since it aims at improving indoor environmental conditions. This would in turn, enhance student- learning while minimizing adverse environmental impact through energy efficiency of comfort-related HVAC and lighting systems. This research, which is a part of a larger research project, aims at evaluating different school building designs in Albania in terms of energy use and indoor thermal comfort, and identify energy efficient options of existing schools. We start by identifying three different climate zones in Albania; Coastal (Durres), Hill/Pre-mountainous (Tirana), mountainous (Korca). Next, two prototypical school building designs are identified from the existing stock. Numerous scenarios are then identified for analysis which consists of combinations of climate zone, building type, building orientation, building upgrade levels, presence of renewable energy systems (solar photovoltaic and solar water heater). The existing building layouts, initially outlined in CAD software and then imported into a detailed building energy software program (eQuest) to perform annual simulations for all scenarios. The research also predicted indoor thermal comfort conditions of the various scenarios on the premise that windows could be opened to provide natural ventilation cooling when appropriate. This study also estimated the energy generated from solar photovoltaic systems and solar water heater systems when placed on the available roof area to determine the extent to which they are able to meet the required electric loads (plug and lights) and building heating loads respectively. The results showed that there is adequate indoor comfort without the need for mechanical cooling for the three climate zones, and that only heating is needed during the winter months. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Architecture 2015