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

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.

The Impact of Indoor Environment Quality on People on the Autism Spectrum

<p>People on the autism spectrum are widely reported to have differences in how they process sensory information compared to people not on the autism spectrum (neurotypical). These differences in sensory processing are prevalent regardless of age or IQ level. All people are affected by the built environment, with indoor environment quality (IEQ) linked to comfort, productivity, health and wellbeing. However, there is little research about the direct impact of the built environment on autistic adults. This study investigates whether differences in sensory processing impact how autistic people experience the built environment, and whether there were patterns in the effects of different IEQ factors. Adults on the autism spectrum (n=83), neurotypical control adults (n=134), and adults with other conditions affecting sensory processing or who were closely related to someone on the autism spectrum (n=59) participated in an anonymous online survey. Participants were asked about their home and workplace, experiences of the general built environment, and general sensory sensitivity. Autistic participants, who reported significantly higher sensory processing scores than Control participants, consistently reported higher levels of discomfort in both their home and workplace environments, feeling more overwhelming, stressed, and distracted, and less safe than the Control group in both environments. Though shopping malls, supermarkets, other retail and medical buildings are all essential buildings that people need to frequent to meet material needs and stay healthy, they all caused greater discomfort and distress for Autistic participants, who also avoided them more often. The odds of an Autistic participant avoiding buildings was 8.8 times greater than the Control group. Higher discomfort and distress reported by Autistic participants in office buildings may affects the low employment rates in this population. People and People Noise were the IEQ factors that, across multiple environments, were rated as highest as a cause of discomfort and avoidance and had the largest difference between Autistic and Control participants, followed by Glare and Electric Light. Meanwhile, Temperature was rated equally highly by both groups, having a large effect but no difference between groups, with a similar trend seen in Air Quality and Air Movement. Autistic people already struggle with social isolation, early mortality, and low employment rates, which are likely compounded by greater sensory stress from the built environment. Further research into understanding the relationship between the effects of the indoor environment and the differences in sensory processing in people on the autism spectrum is essential to creating solutions for a more accessible built environment.</p>

The Impact of Indoor Environment Quality on People on the Autism Spectrum

<p>People on the autism spectrum are widely reported to have differences in how they process sensory information compared to people not on the autism spectrum (neurotypical). These differences in sensory processing are prevalent regardless of age or IQ level. All people are affected by the built environment, with indoor environment quality (IEQ) linked to comfort, productivity, health and wellbeing. However, there is little research about the direct impact of the built environment on autistic adults. This study investigates whether differences in sensory processing impact how autistic people experience the built environment, and whether there were patterns in the effects of different IEQ factors. Adults on the autism spectrum (n=83), neurotypical control adults (n=134), and adults with other conditions affecting sensory processing or who were closely related to someone on the autism spectrum (n=59) participated in an anonymous online survey. Participants were asked about their home and workplace, experiences of the general built environment, and general sensory sensitivity. Autistic participants, who reported significantly higher sensory processing scores than Control participants, consistently reported higher levels of discomfort in both their home and workplace environments, feeling more overwhelming, stressed, and distracted, and less safe than the Control group in both environments. Though shopping malls, supermarkets, other retail and medical buildings are all essential buildings that people need to frequent to meet material needs and stay healthy, they all caused greater discomfort and distress for Autistic participants, who also avoided them more often. The odds of an Autistic participant avoiding buildings was 8.8 times greater than the Control group. Higher discomfort and distress reported by Autistic participants in office buildings may affects the low employment rates in this population. People and People Noise were the IEQ factors that, across multiple environments, were rated as highest as a cause of discomfort and avoidance and had the largest difference between Autistic and Control participants, followed by Glare and Electric Light. Meanwhile, Temperature was rated equally highly by both groups, having a large effect but no difference between groups, with a similar trend seen in Air Quality and Air Movement. Autistic people already struggle with social isolation, early mortality, and low employment rates, which are likely compounded by greater sensory stress from the built environment. Further research into understanding the relationship between the effects of the indoor environment and the differences in sensory processing in people on the autism spectrum is essential to creating solutions for a more accessible built environment.</p>

On reducing CO2 concentration in buildings by using plants

The article deals with the implementation of plants in the indoor environment of buildings to reduce the concentration of CO2. Based on a specified model representing the internal environment of an office space, it was studied whether the requirement for the total amount of ventilated air could be reduced by using plants, thereby achieving savings of operating costs in the building ventilation sector. The present research describes the effect of plant implementation according to different levels of CO2 concentration of the supply air, specifically with values of 410 ppm corresponding to the year 2020, 550 ppm to the year 2050 and 670 ppm to the year 2100, as well as according to different levels of CO2 concentration in the indoor environment, namely 1000 ppm and 1500 ppm, the illumination of plants in the indoor environment is constant in the model, PPFD equals to 200 μmolm−2 s−1. Based on the computational model, it was found that the implemented plants can positively influence the requirement for the total amount of ventilated air, the most significant effect is in the case of a low indoor environment quality, with the CO2 concentration of 1500 ppm, and a high supply air quality 410 p˙pm. The simulation also showed that compared to 2020, by the year 2100, it will be necessary to increase the ventilation of the indoor environment by 25.1% to ensure the same quality of the indoorenvironment.

Modified Open-Plan Preschool Spaces and their Influence on Children’s Cognitive Development

Modified open-planning to define activity spaces is vital in preschool design. Children’s cognitive development is reflected in cognitive school readiness (SR). This study investigates the correlation between modified open-plan spaces and cognitive SR in Malaysian preschools. A prospective cohort study involving 378 children at 18 MOE preschools was conducted. Among all preschool physical design aspects (size, image, scale, circulation, facilities, indoor environment quality, safety, home bases, activity areas, and play yards), the quality of modified open-plan preschool spaces showed the strongest correlation with children cognitive SR (Pearson r=0.658, p=0.000). Findings are hoped to promote better planning in preschool designs. Keywords: Modified open-plan, cognitive development, preschool design, school readiness. eISSN 2514-751X © 2021. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by E-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ajebs.v6i18.382

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

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.

The Application Of Living Walls For Acoustic Comfort

Interior space comfort encompasses design performance criteria beyond the thermal qualities of the space. The acoustic performance has shown to be an essential factor for the productivity levels of the users of the space, and is essential for overall indoor environment quality to be maintained. This research focuses on the potential of integrating living walls within indoor spaces, such as atriums and halls, to provide a passive strategy for noise insulation. The procedure is conducted through a series of acoustic measurements and calculations to determine the sound absorption coefficient of living walls in-situ. A case study space is used to evaluate the integration of living walls to provide acoustic comfort.