The New Italian standard UNI 11532 on acoustics for schools

In Italy, the new UNI 11532 standard introduces requirements for acoustic comfort in different building typologies such as schools, offices and hospitals. In March 2018 the UNI 11532 - Part 1 "General requirements" was published, which includes the main descriptors related to noise, room acoustics and speech intelligibility to be considered for the design and verification phases. The drafting of Part 2, dedicated to schools, is now completed. This standard is voluntary for private constructions, but mandatory in the public sphere following the issue of the Ministerial Decree “Minimum Environmental Criteria (Criteri Ambientali Minimi or “CAM”) for the awarding of design and construction services for new construction, renovation and maintenance of public buildings”, dated 11 October 2017. The Decree explicitly refers to the UNI 11532 standard for the requirements to be guaranteed in public procurement. The underlying principles and criteria of the new standard in the case of schools, as well as comparisons with other standards in Europe, will be presented and discussed in this work.