Childhood Myopia and Light Exposure in School Environments

Abstract

Myopia is an eye disease that begins to develop at a young age, approximately between the ages of six and nine years. Children these ages spend a large amount of time inside school buildings. Two case studies have been studied to see what can be improved in school building design to get more light inside. Light measurements have been done to see what the current situation is of these schools. After this, several design adaptations have been simulated to see their impact on the light levels inside. These design adaptations included enlarging the windows in several ways and changing the colours and materials inside. They are ranked in two design matrices, rated on effectiveness, feasibility and costs for both renovation and newly build school buildings. Results show that replacing the floor with a light coloured one and replacing the sun shading with white thin ones , increasing the illuminance inside with 25% and 63% respectively, are the best design strategies for renovation. For new school buildings it is recommended to make the windows wider instead of lower, which can result in an increase of illuminance inside of 34%.