Developing an indoor environment quality tool for assessment of mechanically ventilated office buildings in the UK – A preliminary study

The green building certification system has long-lasting benefits by improving building efficiency and sustainability. The ultimate goal of such classification is to promote the preservation of the global environment as well as the occupants’ well-being and their health. In this paper, we present examples of buildings that have been designed and built in Poland and have been certified with BREEAM, LEED and WELL. Our study investigates human factors in certification systems and examines the WELL Building Standard as a supplement to other green systems, which will probably be the most popular in the future. The green building movement should prioritize pro-human factors and the associated environmental beliefs to improve indoor environment quality for users’ needs. We present this matter on the example of the Polish office space market, providing statistics and analyzing the architecture of six certified office buildings from Warsaw, Poznań and Wrocław. They are a representative sample of buildings designed following the certification regime. It was demonstrated how this aids in improving work comfort, enhances the program of office spaces and the organization of service spaces within buildings, which increases the rank of this architecture and positively affects the urban environment.

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Occupants’ Satisfaction toward Indoor Environment Quality of Platinum Green-Certified Office Buildings in Tropical Climate

Energies ◽

10.3390/en14082264 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (8) ◽

pp. 2264

Author(s):

Masoud Esfandiari ◽

Suzaini Mohamed Zaid ◽

Muhammad Azzam Ismail ◽

Mohammad Reza Hafezi ◽

Iman Asadi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Relative Humidity ◽

Indoor Environment ◽

Tropical Climate ◽

Full Scale ◽

High Relative Humidity ◽

Office Buildings ◽

Environment Quality ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Indoor Environment Quality

The quality of the indoor environment has become a vital component for buildings due to the time spent indoors. To this extent, the performance of the indoor environment is considered as part of the greenery criteria by green rating schemes such as the Green Building Index in Malaysia. This study aims to investigate and assess the quality of the indoor environment of Platinum-certified office buildings in a tropical climate. This research applied a case study approach over two Platinum-certified office buildings. Post-occupancy evaluation is employed integrating full-scale measurement with an occupants’ survey. The measurement was carried out from May to August, and 112 questionnaires were retrieved to evaluate occupants’ satisfaction with aspects of the indoor environment. Thermal comfort, indoor air quality, acoustic, lighting, furniture, and cleanliness are considered as the main study variables. The findings of full-scale measurement indicated high relative humidity, and low air velocity and illuminance. While occupants reported overall indoor environment quality (IEQ) comfort, a significant correlation of variables was observed. The main sources of dissatisfaction were identified as overcooling around 24 °C, high relative humidity (RH), around 70% RH, glare, and background noise around 51.9 dB. Statistically, a significant difference between occupants’ responses to IEQ of two cases was identified, although both buildings are labelled with a Platinum certificate.

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