Necessary conditions for multi-domain indoor environmental quality standards
Journal article, 2020

A discussion of sustainability in architecture cannot be meaningfully carried out without the inclusion of most buildings’ central purpose, namely the provision of indoor environments that are accommodating of occupants’ needs and requirements. To this end, building designers and operators are expected to demonstrate compliance with codes and standards pertaining to indoor environmental quality (IEQ). However, the majority of conventional IEQ standards, codes, and guidelines have a single-domain character, in that they address IEQ in terms of a number of isolated domains (i.e., thermal, visual, acoustic, air quality). In this context, the present contribution explores the current state of multi-domain IEQ evaluation approaches and the necessary conditions for their further development and application. Toward this end, a number of common building rating schemes were selected and analyzed in detail. The results of this assessment imply the necessity of both short-term improvements of the existing schemes in terms of the transparency and plausibility of the applied point allocation and weighting strategies and the fundamental need for a deeper empirically grounded understanding of the nature of occupants’ perception of and behavior in the built environments.

Human factor

Indoor environmental quality

Multi-domain

Architecture

Standards

Codes

Sustainability rating

Building

Author

Ardeshir Mahdavi

Vienna University of Technology

Christiane Berger

Vienna University of Technology

Veselina Bochukova

Vienna University of Technology

L. Bourikas

Lancaster University

Runa T. Hellwig

Aalborg University

Quan Jin

Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Building Technology

Anna Laura Pisello

University of Perugia

Marcel Schweiker

RWTH Aachen University

Sustainability

20711050 (eISSN)

Vol. 12 20 1-24 8439

Occupant well-being and productivity in sustainable office buildings: A multidisciplinary study on the key factors of indoor environmental quality

Formas (FR-2018/0010), 2019-01-01 -- 2021-12-31.

Subject Categories

Architectural Engineering

Environmental Analysis and Construction Information Technology

Building Technologies

DOI

10.3390/su12208439

More information

Latest update

4/30/2021