scholarly journals Healthy Indoor Environments: The Need for a Holistic Approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (9) ◽  
pp. 1874 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aneta Wierzbicka ◽  
Eja Pedersen ◽  
Roger Persson ◽  
Birgitta Nordquist ◽  
Kristian Stålne ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Indoor Environment ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Indoor Environments ◽  
Environment Quality ◽  
Efficiency Measures ◽  
Indoor Environment Quality ◽  
Advance Research ◽  
Potential Risks ◽  
Health And Well Being

Indoor environments have a large impact on health and well-being, so it is important to understand what makes them healthy and sustainable. There is substantial knowledge on individual factors and their effects, though understanding how factors interact and what role occupants play in these interactions (both causative and receptive) is lacking. We aimed to: (i) explore interactions between factors and potential risks if these are not considered from holistic perspective; and (ii) identify components needed to advance research on indoor environments. The paper is based on collaboration between researchers from disciplines covering technical, behavioural, and medical perspectives. Outcomes were identified through literature reviews, discussions and workshops with invited experts and representatives from various stakeholder groups. Four themes emerged and were discussed with an emphasis on occupant health: (a) the bio-psycho-social aspects of health; (b) interaction between occupants, buildings and indoor environment; (c) climate change and its impact on indoor environment quality, thermal comfort and health; and (d) energy efficiency measures and indoor environment. To advance the relevant research, the indoor environment must be considered a dynamic and complex system with multiple interactions. This calls for a transdisciplinary and holistic approach and effective collaboration with various stakeholders.

scholarly journals The Impact of Certification Systems for Architectural Solutions in Green Office Buildings in the Perspective of Occupant Well-Being

Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 659
Author(s):  
Magdalena Grzegorzewska ◽  
Paweł Kirschke
Keyword(s):  
Human Factors ◽  
Indoor Environment ◽  
Green Building ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Office Buildings ◽  
Environment Quality ◽  
Environmental Beliefs ◽  
Certification System ◽  
Indoor Environment Quality ◽  
The Impact

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.

scholarly journals Indoor Environmental Quality in Latin American Buildings: A Systematic Literature Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 643 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Valderrama-Ulloa ◽  
Lorena Silva-Castillo ◽  
Catalina Sandoval-Grandi ◽  
Carlos Robles-Calderon ◽  
Fabien Rouault
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Indoor Environment ◽  
Indoor Environmental Quality ◽  
Indoor Environments ◽  
Environment Quality ◽  
Indoor Environment Quality

The amount of time people spend inside buildings is significant. Indoor environment quality deficiencies in some of these buildings may affect the health of its users. Therefore, a systematic literature review has been conducted to assess the quality of indoor environments in existing buildings in Latin America. The objectives of this review are (1) identifying countries and building types whose indoor environment quality has been analyzed the most, (2) identifying most used evaluation strategies, (3) identifying comfort types and most evaluated variables, and (4) determining whether or not Latin American buildings are comfortable and what local factors contribute to that effect. From the 100 selected papers for this analysis, it was noted that Brazil and Argentina led the studies on residences and schools. It was also noted that hygrothermal comfort was the most analyzed comfort type, with temperature and humidity leading the number of studies. Finally, this review shows a lack of studies including buildings whose users are sensitive to indoor environmental quality, such as nurseries, senior homes, or health facilities. Additionally, there is a sustained discrepancy between objective measuring methods and user perception. Furthermore, a detailed analysis of 88 buildings shows that in Latin America, 67.5% of buildings are uncomfortable; thus, it is necessary to improve the designs and regulatory standards, to educate users, and to improve building monitoring management at the operational stage.

scholarly journals Assessment of Thermal Comfort in the Intelligent Buildings in View of Providing High Quality Indoor Environment

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1973
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Majewski ◽  
Łukasz J. Orman ◽  
Marek Telejko ◽  
Norbert Radek ◽  
Jacek Pietraszek ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Indoor Environment ◽  
Thermal Environment ◽  
Thermal Sensation ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Concentration ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Environment Quality ◽  
Intelligent Buildings ◽  
Indoor Environment Quality ◽  
Very High

The paper analyses the indoor environment in two modern intelligent buildings located in Poland. Measurements of air and globe temperatures, relative humidity and carbon dioxide concentration in 117 rooms carried out in the space of 1.5 years were presented. Thermal comfort of the occupants has been investigated using a questionnaire survey. Based on 1369 questionnaires, thermal sensation, acceptability and preference votes were analysed in view of their interdependency as well as their dependency on operative temperature, which proved to be very strong. It has been found that the respondents did not completely rate thermal comfort and indoor environment quality as very high, although the overwhelming sensations were positive. Apart from the operation of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, this might have also been the cause of individual human factors, such as body mass index, as tested in the study, or the finding that people were generally in favour of a warmer environment. Moreover, thermal environment proved to be the most important element for ensuring the well-being of the occupants.

Exploration of Long-Term Care Institution Managers’ Perceptions of Institutional Indoor Environment Quality and Ease of Administration

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 121-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yen Ping Hsieh ◽  
Chia Ching Lin ◽  
Ying Chia Huang
Keyword(s):  
Indoor Environment ◽  
Care Facility ◽  
Indoor Environments ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Longterm Care ◽  
Environment Quality ◽  
Indoor Environment Quality ◽  
High Level ◽  
Level Of Importance

This study investigated the level of management’s perception of the importance of indoor environment indicators at longterm care facilities as well as the differences between the level of perceived importance and the level of implementation. This study also analyzed the indicators for improving indoor environments. This study selected Taiwanese longterm care facility managers as its subjects to whom questionnaires were distributed by mail. Descriptive statistics, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and an importanceperformance analysis were used to conduct analyses on the data retrieved from the questionnaires. The results indicate that, of the indoor environment indicators of four facility spaces, bedrooms had the highest perceived level of importance. The lounge was the easiest space in which to implement the indicators. Differences were found between the perceived level of importance and the level of implementation for six of the indoor environment indicators of the four facility spaces. In these four spaces, the ventilation indicator was the most important, whereas implementing the temperature and humidity indicators was the most difficult. The highest priority for indicator improvement was given to the temperature in the bedrooms and bathrooms, whereas control over temperature, humidity, and sound had a low priority. The indicators seen as requiring continuous maintenance were lighting and ventilation. Facility managers had a high level of awareness and competence in implementing the ventilation indicator. However, although they were aware of the importance of the temperature, humidity, and sound indicators, their implementation was difficult, suggesting that they needed to be improved.

scholarly journals Psychological And Physiological Benefits Of Plants In The Indoor Environment: A Mini And In-Depth Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-67
Author(s):  
Lee Bak Yeo
Keyword(s):  
Indoor Environment ◽  
Sick Building Syndrome ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Pain Tolerance ◽  
Related Disorder ◽  
Environment Quality ◽  
Indoor Environment Quality ◽  
Positive Feelings ◽  
Physiological Benefits ◽  
The Right

People tend to spend approximately 87% of their time in the indoor environment. There is a possibility that they are exposed to volatile organic compound (VOC) and particle pollution, and to experience stress related disorder. This has potential threaten the well-being of indoor occupants if left untreated. Hence, plants were introduced to alleviate these negative impacts. This paper reviews past literature from 1990 to 2010s, to examine the relationship of plants with indoor environment and identifies how they influence people, psychologically and physiologically, and how they promote indoor environment quality. Most studies suggest that the presence of plants is associated with positive feelings and able to enhance productivity. In addition, they also may help to promote general health such as reducing blood pressure, perceived stress, sick building syndrome, and increase pain tolerance of the patient. Moreover, plants also help in improving the indoor environment quality (IEQ), for instance, they can reduce carbon dioxide (CO2), indoor ozone (O3) level, VOC, and particulate matter accumulation through bioremediation process. Despite all the benefits that the plants could offer, several studies pointed out that factors such as gender, perceived attractiveness of the space, physical characteristics of plants, and methods of interaction with plants may lead to non-identical results. Hence, the selection of the right species of plant in an indoor environment becomes mandatory in order to improve the indoor environment quality; to provide restorative effect; to invoke positive feelings and comfort of the people. In conclusion, this review may provide notable insights to landscape architects, gardeners and even interior designers to choose the right species of plant in an indoor environment, to maximize their psychological and physiological benefits, at the same time, improving indoor environment quality.

scholarly journals Relation between occupants’ health problems, demographic and indoor environment subjective evaluations: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey study in Java Island, Indonesia

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. e0254460
Author(s):  
Solli Murtyas ◽  
Nishat T. Toosty ◽  
Aya Hagishima ◽  
N. H. Kusumaningdyah
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Questionnaire Survey ◽  
Indoor Environment ◽  
Health Problems ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Indoor Environments ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Thermal Discomfort ◽  
Environment Quality ◽  
Indoor Environment Quality

This study aimed to evaluate the link between health problems, demographic factors, and the indoor environment quality of residents in Indonesia. We conducted a cross-sectional design study through a questionnaire survey with 443 respondents aged between 12 and 81 years. The questionnaire was concerned with previous health problem occurrences associated with thermal discomfort experiences, indoor environments, economic conditions, and basic anthropometric factors. Logistic regression with the odds ratio (OR) was applied to evaluate the tendency of different respondent groups to suffer from certain health problems, when compared to reference groups. Furthermore, structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to incorporate certain factors (economic conditions, thermal discomfort experiences, and perceived indoor environments) into a single model to understand their direct and indirect effects on health conditions. The results indicate that economic conditions are the most significantly associated with health problems. Furthermore, we found that the low-income group was the most vulnerable to health problems, including coughing, puking, diarrhoea, odynophagia, headaches, fatigue, rheumatism, fidgeting, skin rashes, muscle cramps, and insomnia (OR: 1.94–6.04, p <0.05). Additionally, the SEM suggested that the respondents’ economic conditions and thermal discomfort experiences had significant direct effects on their health problems with standardized estimates of -0.29 and 0.55, respectively. Additionally, perceived indoor environment quality, which is possible to cause thermal discomfort experience, indirectly affect health problems. These findings contribute an insightful and intuitive knowledge base which can aid health assessments associated with demographic and physical environments in developing sustainable and healthy environment strategies for the future.

A Report on The Acoustic Conditions of IEQ Laboratory Using ISO 3382-3

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-26
Author(s):  
Jason Obadiah
Keyword(s):  
Indoor Environment ◽  
Environment Quality ◽  
Indoor Environment Quality ◽  
The Future ◽  
Open Plan ◽  
Acoustic Conditions

Recently, many facilities have completed new laboratories that may be used to assess various measures of Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) in office spaces. Also recently, a new standard, ISO 3382-3, was released for assessing the effects of speech on IEQ in open plan offices. The aim of this report is to assess one room of the IEQ lab using the ISO 3382-3 standard. It is expected that the data gained will be of help to researchers using the facility in the future. Keywords: ISO 3382-3, Indoor Environment Quality, Acoustics

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