The closure of educational institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic had significant negative impacts, emphasizing the need to keep schools open while ensuring safety. It is crucial to find ways to keep educational institutions open while ensuring the safety of students and staff. While measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing have been implemented. This thesis focuses on decentralized, SMART, and personal ventilation systems to understand their effects and develop effective strategies. Consequently, a central research question has been formulated, supported by four sub-questions. The main question is then as follows:

How can smart, personal or decentralised ventilation improve the ventilation system design to make it more COVID-19-proof while not negatively impacting the comfort of the occupants in an educational environment and being both practical and cost-efficient?

The report begins with a comprehensive literature study to establish a theoretical foundation and identify research gaps. It then proceeds to design and experimentation, which include testing four distinct situations: baseline, decentralized, SMART, and personal ventilation. Each situation aims to test the location under different conditions and gather data about how utilisation of the ventilation system and different parameters could affect the infection risk. First, the baseline is established, which serves as the reference point for comparison. Which is then followed by the other designs of the decentralised-, SMART- and personal ventilation. Simulations are primarily used, supported by measurements and surveys when possible. This was then followed by a discussion, where the results are examined, their implications and significance are compared to the literature.

In conclusion, the results from the simulations and measurements indicate that certain systems demonstrate more potential in mitigating infection risks and improving indoor conditions during airborne pandemics, specifically the SMART and PV systems when their design are optimally utilised. In contrast, the decentral ventilation unit proved to be less effective overall. Additionally, the findings underscore the importance of increasing ventilation rates and optimizing the location and distance of supply and exhaust units to minimize the spread of airborne viruses. Therefore, it can be concluded that while ventilation rate and strategic component placement are crucial in ventilation system design, a nuanced approach is necessary to strike a balance between reducing infection risks, meeting comfort requirements, and considering practical and economic factors.