scholarly journals A Healthy, Energy-Efficient and Comfortable Indoor Environment, a Review

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 1414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paulína Šujanová ◽  
Monika Rychtáriková ◽  
Tiago Sotto Mayor ◽  
Affan Hyder
Keyword(s):  
Indoor Air ◽  
Active Agent ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Physical Parameters ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Indoor Environmental Quality ◽  
Indoor Environments ◽  
Visual Comfort ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Adaptation Limits

Design strategies for sustainable buildings, that improve building performance and avoid extensive resource utilization, should also promote healthy indoor environments. The following paper contains a review of the couplings between (1) building design, (2) indoor environmental quality and (3) occupant behavior. The paper focuses on defining the limits of adaptation on the three aforementioned levels to ensure the energy efficiency of the whole system and healthy environments. The adaptation limits are described for measurable physical parameters and the relevant responsible human sensory systems, evaluating thermal comfort, visual comfort, indoor air quality and acoustical quality. The goal is to describe the interactions between the three levels where none is a passive participant, but rather an active agent of a wider human-built environment system. The conclusions are drawn in regard to the comfort of the occupant. The study reviews more than 300 sources, ranging from journals, books, conference proceedings, and reports complemented by a review of standards and directives.

A Literature Analysis on Acoustical Environment in Green Building Design Strategies

2013 ◽  
Vol 471 ◽  
pp. 138-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurul Amira Abd Jalil ◽  
Nazli Bin Che Din ◽  
Nila Inangda Manyam Keumala Daud
Keyword(s):  
Natural Ventilation ◽  
Green Building ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Green Buildings ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Indoor Environmental Quality ◽  
Visual Comfort ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Green Building Design ◽  
And Performance

Acoustic quality is important in ensuring a healthy and workable working environment. One of green buildings main objective is to reduce the building impact on human health and performance. This was emphasized in most green building rating system under its requirement for Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ). IEQ highlights the four main points for achieving an improved indoor environment: indoor air quality, acoustics, visual comfort (lighting) and thermal comfort. Although acoustics was mentioned in the IEQ criteria, according to previous surveys and studies; acoustics quality in green buildings were not improving. It seems as though in order to improve on other green building criteria, acoustics performance is bound to become poorer. Through review of previous literature, survey and studies on acoustical performance in green buildings, the objective of this paper is to identify how green building design strategies contribute to the degradation of acoustical environment in green office buildings. Findings shows that design strategies implemented to cater for other green building requirements such as natural ventilation, daylight, reduction of finishes and office layout have unintentionally decrease the acoustical quality.

scholarly journals Building performance evaluation: Balancing energy and indoor environmental quality in a UK school building

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nishesh Jain ◽  
Esfand Burman ◽  
Craig Robertson ◽  
Samuel Stamp ◽  
Clive Shrubsole ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Performance Evaluation ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Indoor Air Quality ◽  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Indoor Air ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Indoor Environmental Quality ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Performance Gap

There is a policy-driven focus, at present, on improving the energy performance of buildings. However, energy-related issues alone do not capture the full impact of buildings on occupants and the wider environment. The performance of a building also includes occupant wellbeing and indoor environmental quality. Specifically, in schools, indoor environmental quality (thermal comfort, indoor air quality, lighting and acoustics) is an important aspect. Additionally, the issue of the ‘performance gap’, generally focused on energy, also affects indoor environmental quality parameters and needs to be addressed holistically. This paper reports on a holistic building performance evaluation covering aspects of energy, thermal comfort, indoor air quality, lighting and acoustics. It assesses the performance issues and inter-relationships between energy and indoor environmental quality in a recently built school campus in London. Based on the evidence collated from this case study and supplementary literature, the endemic issues and constraints within the construction industry are explored, such as inappropriate design calculations and resistance to new low-carbon technologies. Further, lessons for improved performance in the design, operation and maintenance of schools are highlighted such as factoring in the changing building use trends during design and the significance of optimal operations and maintenance of building systems for better energy and indoor environmental quality performance. This study shows that if the building design focus primarily remains on energy, unintended consequence of indoor environmental quality underperformance may occur where there are conflicts between energy and indoor environmental quality objectives. An integrated approach to building performance can help address this issue. Practical application: There are often conflicts between energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality (IEQ) objectives in building design and operation. Most building performance evaluations are primarily focused on one set of these performance criteria. This building performance evaluation was done with an integrated energy and IEQ perspective. The study identifies the causes of underperformance in energy and IEQ in a recently built school in London. Some of the findings from this study provide lessons that are relevant across the industry for the delivery of low-carbon and healthy buildings. These lessons include methods to further strengthen the policy frameworks and design protocols along with overall improvements in the processes followed during design, construction and operation of schools and other non-domestic buildings. The paper can also inform building designers, contractors and facility managers about the ways to reduce the performance gap and achieve energy targets without unintended consequences for indoor environment.

scholarly journals Building Performance Evaluation of a New Hospital Building in the UK: Balancing Indoor Environmental Quality and Energy Performance

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Nishesh Jain ◽  
Esfand Burman ◽  
Samuel Stamp ◽  
Clive Shrubsole ◽  
Roderic Bunn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Performance Evaluation ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Indoor Air Quality ◽  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Indoor Air ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Indoor Environmental Quality

Hospitals are controlled yet complex ecosystems which provide a therapeutic environment that promotes healing, wellbeing and work efficiency for patients and staff. As these buildings accommodate the sick and vulnerable, occupant wellbeing and good indoor environmental quality (IEQ) that deals with indoor air quality (IAQ), thermal comfort, lighting and acoustics are important objectives. As the specialist nature of hospital function demands highly controlled indoor environments, this makes them energy intensive buildings due to the complex and varying specifications for their functions and operations. This paper reports on a holistic building performance evaluation covering aspects of indoor air quality, thermal comfort, lighting, acoustics, and energy use. It assesses the performance issues and inter-relationships between IEQ and energy in a new building on a hospital campus in the city of Bristol, United Kingdom. The empirical evidence collated from this case study and the feedback received from the hospital staff help identify the endemic issues and constraints related to hospital buildings, such as the need for robust ventilation strategies in hospitals in urban areas that mitigate the effect of indoor and outdoor air pollution and ensuring the use of planned new low-carbon technologies. Whilst the existing guidelines for building design provide useful instructions for the protection of hospital buildings against ingress of particulate matter from outdoors, more advanced filtration strategies may be required to enact chemical reactions required to control the concentration levels of pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and benzene. Further lessons for improved performance in operation and maintenance of hospitals are highlighted. These include ensuring that the increasingly available metering and monitoring data in new buildings, through building management systems, is used for efficient and optimal building operations for better IEQ and energy management. Overall, the study highlights the need for an integrated and holistic approach to building performance to ensure that healthy environments are provided while energy efficiency targets are met.

scholarly journals Effects of Climatic Conditions, Season and Environmental Factors on CO2 Concentrations in Naturally Ventilated Primary Schools in Chile

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4139
Author(s):  
Muriel Diaz ◽  
Mario Cools ◽  
Maureen Trebilcock ◽  
Beatriz Piderit-Moreno ◽  
Shady Attia
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Indoor Air Quality ◽  
Indoor Air ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Co2 Concentration ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Indoor Environmental Quality ◽  
Co2 Concentrations ◽  
The Impact

Between the ages of 6 and 18, children spend between 30 and 42 h a week at school, mostly indoors, where indoor environmental quality is usually deficient and does not favor learning. The difficulty of delivering indoor air quality (IAQ) in learning facilities is related to high occupancy rates and low interaction levels with windows. In non-industrialized countries, as in the cases presented, most classrooms have no mechanical ventilation, due to energy poverty and lack of normative requirements. This fact heavily impacts the indoor air quality and students’ learning outcomes. The aim of the paper is to identify the factors that determine acceptable CO2 concentrations. Therefore, it studies air quality in free-running and naturally ventilated primary schools in Chile, aiming to identify the impact of contextual, occupant, and building design factors, using CO2 concentration as a proxy for IAQ. The monitoring of CO2, temperature, and humidity revealed that indoor air CO2 concentration is above 1400 ppm most of the time, with peaks of 5000 ppm during the day, especially in winter. The statistical analysis indicates that CO2 is dependent on climate, seasonality, and indoor temperature, while it is independent of outside temperature in heated classrooms. The odds of having acceptable concentrations of CO2 are bigger when indoor temperatures are high, and there is a need to ventilate for cooling.

scholarly journals Measuring emotional and neurophysiological responses to the scale of the built environment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabella Simone Bower ◽  
Gillian M Clark ◽  
Richard Tucker ◽  
Jarrad Lum ◽  
Michael Mortimer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Emotion Understanding ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Indoor Environmental Quality ◽  
Indoor Environments ◽  
Design Elements ◽  
Power Spectral

There is currently no robust method to evaluate how building design affects our emotion. Understanding emotion is significant, as it influences cognitive processes, behaviour and wellbeing, and is linked to the functioning of physiological systems. As mental health problems are more prevalent, and exposure to indoor environments is increasing, it is important we develop rigorous methods to understand whether design elements in our environment affect emotion. Using virtual reality and controlling for indoor environmental quality, 66 participants were exposed to different enclosed indoor room scenes, to understand if scale affected self-report, autonomic nervous system and central nervous system correlates of emotion. Scale did not modulate neurophysiological measures or self-reported emotion, but there were differences between resting state and built environment conditions in autonomic measures, power spectral density and frontal power lateralisation. This study provides a rigorous empirical framework for assessing the environmental impact of a design characteristic on human emotion.

A weighted multi-objective optimisation approach to improve based facade aperture sizes in terms of energy, thermal comfort and daylight usage

2020 ◽  
pp. 174425912093004
Author(s):  
Yiğit Yılmaz ◽  
Burcu Çiğdem Yılmaz
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Primary Energy ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Indoor Environmental Quality ◽  
Multi Objective ◽  
Design Variables

In building design, the decision-makers should not focus only on energy efficiency as a single objective but indoor environmental quality indicators, such as thermal comfort, daylight usage and so on, should also be considered as a part of building performance. The building performance can be ensured by determining the proper performance indicators and the variables during the design. In this context, a weighted (among the objectives) multi-objective cost function was proposed, for the optimisation of energy, thermal comfort and daylight usage of a case study archetype design, through the selected design variables, considering the base architectural design principles as well. A typical social housing archetype design was determined as the case study to apply the proposed approach. The window sizes are optimised for each orientation simultaneously, for a temperate-humid climatic region. The results were evaluated in terms of improvement potentials of energy, thermal comfort and daylight performances, and the dominant values for the window sizes for each facade. According to the results, the optimised scenario achieved an 11.42% reduction in primary energy use equivalent to 181.24 kWh/m2a, a 4.52% reduction in a predicted percentage of dissatisfied with 9.12%, and a reduction in lighting energy of 4.94% equivalent to 21.17 kWh/m2a. These reductions verify the possibility to achieve higher performances on each criterion.

scholarly journals A Review of Balcony Impacts on the Indoor Environmental Quality of Dwellings

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (16) ◽  
pp. 6453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catarina Ribeiro ◽  
Nuno M. M. Ramos ◽  
Inês Flores-Colen
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Indoor Air ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Indoor Environmental Quality ◽  
Visual Comfort ◽  
Acoustic Comfort ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Comprehensive Study

Balconies are an ancient architectural archetype that are being increasingly considered in multi-family buildings of high-density cities. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of the impacts of balcony types on the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and energy consumption of dwellings. Of the reviewed studies, 69% were published during the last decade, making it evident that awareness of the positive impact of balcony spaces is continuously increasing. The literature review allowed us to identify three balcony spaces according to their morphology and their boundary system: open balcony (OB), glazed balcony (GB), and eliminate balcony (EB). It was concluded that these balcony types produce relevant impacts in four factors that contribute to the indoor environmental quality: thermal comfort, indoor air quality, visual comfort, and acoustic comfort. Practical design recommendations and constraints were provided according to distinct climatic conditions and building technologies. This review also explored the assessment methodologies used for the optimization of the balconies on the design process. The literature highlighted the lack of a comprehensive study about the impact of balconies in mild and Mediterranean climates, as well as the knowledge limitations concerning the balance between the impacts on IEQ factors.

Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) Acceptance of Air Conditioned Buildings in Malaysia: Case Study of Universiti Tenaga Nasional

2014 ◽  
Vol 953-954 ◽  
pp. 1513-1519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iman Asadi ◽  
Ibrahim Hussein ◽  
Kumaran Palanisamy
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Indoor Air ◽  
Linear Regression Analysis ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Concentration ◽  
Environmental Parameters ◽  
Physical Parameters ◽  
Indoor Environmental Quality ◽  
Physical Measurements ◽  
Guidelines And Standards ◽  
The Moment

Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) is an important topic which impacts on energy efficiency and also productivity of occupants. Thermal comfort, indoor air quality, visual comfort and aural comfort are four main physical parameters which are normally used to determine IEQ. In this paper, the results of field study on IEQ conducted in the offices and student study areas of 6 air conditioned buildings in Universiti Tenaga Nasional in Malaysia are presented. The study was conducted during the month of October and November 2013, collecting a full set of objective physical measurements and subjective assessments through questionnaires. The measured environmental parameters are indoor air temperature, relative humidity, air velocity, carbon dioxide concentration, sound pressure level and luminance. The subjective responses concern the judgment of the respondents about the IEQ parameters at the moment of measurements. The results obtained showed that 86% of the respondents found that the IEQ is acceptable and the environmental conditions are mainly within the limits set by the various guidelines and standards in Malaysia. The neutral IEQ values were also determined through linear regression analysis of the sensation votes.

scholarly journals Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Indoor Air Quality and Thermal Comfort of Primary Schools in Winter in a Mediterranean Climate

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2699
Author(s):  
Alicia Alonso ◽  
Jesús Llanos ◽  
Rocío Escandón ◽  
Juan J. Sendra
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Indoor Air Quality ◽  
Indoor Air ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Indoor Environmental Quality ◽  
Indoor Environments ◽  
Thermal Discomfort ◽  
Air Supply ◽  
Hybrid Ventilation

Research studies have shown the potential effects of indoor environmental quality (IEQ) on pupils’ health and academic performance. The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted renewed interest in the assessment of deficient indoor air quality (IAQ) conditions in schools and has become a priority over achieving adequate comfort conditions. Scientific studies confirm aerosols as one of the transmission routes of SARS-CoV-2 so that the possibility of airborne transmission increases in indoor environments with high occupancy, such as classrooms. As a result, international protocols and guidelines have established a requirement for educational buildings to over-ventilate with a fresh outdoor air supply. The main object of this work is to analyse the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on thermal comfort and indoor air quality, in winter, in two classrooms of southern Spain. Thus, onsite measurements of environmental variables were conducted before and during the pandemic. Both classrooms have mechanical ventilation systems as they are within a recently built primary school (2018). Results shows a decrease of 300 ppm in CO2 weekly average values during the pandemic, when hybrid ventilation is used, and a decrease of 400 ppm when schools are naturally ventilated during all teaching hours. However, the analysis of standards shows that over 60% of hours are thermal discomfort conditions.

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