A weekly journal on architecture, anthropology and radiant based heating, ventilation and air conditioning. The role of indoor environmental ergonomics, industrial design, HVAC as a health care issue and other human factors in the design of indoor spaces.
Excerpt: “Humans help to direct microbial biodiversity patterns in buildings – not only as building occupants, but also through architectural design strategies. The impact of human design decisions in structuring the indoor microbiome offers the possibility to use ecological knowledge to shape our buildings in a way that will select for an indoor microbiome that promotes our health and well-being.”
Citation: Kembel SW, Meadow JF, O’Connor TK, Mhuireach G, Northcutt D, et al. (2014) Architectural Design Drives the Biogeography of Indoor Bacterial Communities. PLoS ONE 9(1): e87093. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0087093
The first-ever textbook of children's environmental health. Comprehensively assembled and edited by two pediatricians
who are widely recognized leaders and pioneers in the field of children's
environmental health.
An ideal course textbook or collateral reading in schools of
public health and in universities that offer majors in public health or
environmental science. Suitable for public health practitioners, pediatricians and
pediatric trainees; family physicians; environmental scientists; nurses and
nursing students; students in schools of public health; college undergraduates
majoring in public health, environmental health or environmental science;
health and environmental policy makers in governments and NGOs.
Over the past four decades, the prevalence of autism,
asthma, ADHD, obesity, diabetes, and birth defects have grown substantially
among children around the world. Not coincidentally, more than 80,000 new
chemicals have been developed and released into the global environment during
this same period. Today the World Health Organization attributes 36% of all
childhood deaths to environmental causes.
Children's environmental health is a new and expanding
discipline that studies the profound impact of chemical and environmental
hazards on child health. Amid mounting evidence that children are exquisitely
sensitive to their environment-and that exposure during their developmental
"windows of susceptibility" can trigger cellular changes that lead to
disease and disability in infancy, childhood, and across the life span-there is
a compelling need for continued scientific study of the relationship between
children's health and environment.
The Textbook of Children's Environmental Health codifies the
knowledge base and offers an authoritative and comprehensive guide to this
important new field. Edited by two internationally recognized pioneers in the
area, this volume presents up-to-date information on the chemical, biological,
physical, and societal hazards that confront children in today's world:
pesticides, indoor and outdoor air pollution, lead, arsenic, phthalates,
bisphenol A, brominated flame retardants, ionizing radiation, electromagnetic
fields, and the built environment. It presents carefully documented data on
rising rates of disease in children, offers a critical summary of new research
linking pediatric disease with environmental exposures, and explores the
cellular, molecular, and epigenetic mechanisms underlying diseases of
environmental origin.
With this volume's emphasis upon integrating theory and
practice, readers will find practical approaches to channeling scientific
findings into evidence-based strategies for preventing and identifying the
environmental hazards that cause disease in children. It is a landmark work
that will serve as the field's benchmark for years to come.
Readership: Practitioners and researchers in pediatrics,
public health, nursing, life and environmental sciences, toxicology,
obstetrics, developmental psychology, and health economics.
RBc: We look forward to getting this new publication…in the
meantime be sure to check out these links on indoor environmental quality:
As the heat wave continues, the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) has released a new Guide to provide greater understanding and improved prediction of overheating in commercial buildings. ‘TM52: The limits of thermal comfort: avoiding overheating in European buildings' will be published today on the online Knowledge Portal and will be soon followed by ‘TM49: Probabilistic design summer years for London'.
Both guides offer information to help avoid uncomfortable conditions for occupants. These support the existing publication ‘KS16: How to manage overheating in buildings' which gives guidance for building managers and owners about the causes of overheating and how to mitigate it. CIBSE also provides guidance for building managers and occupants in the form of top tips on how to manage overheating, available to download from the CIBSE website.
Fergus Nicol, lead author of the Guide TM52 commented: "Overheating has become a major problem in building design. The rising cost of energy combined with global climate change has reduced the options available for building comfortable, low-energy buildings. Research has been directed towards methods for increasing indoor winter temperatures but this can lead to lightweight, highly insulated buildings that respond poorly in the summer. To assess this further, CIBSE responded by forming the Overheating Task Force."
The CIBSE Overheating Task Force explored what is needed from building designers, service systems, ventilation and facilities management in order to maintain comfortable living and working conditions, especially in the summer months. Occupant comfort is particularly important as it directly impacts productivity and health which in turn affects employers. Only recently it was quoted that Mark Zuckerburg, founder, Facebook, keeps his offices at 15°C as it is believed to increase productivity. CIBSE's recommended temperature is 20°C.
CIBSE President George Adams also emphasised the importance of designing buildings fit for a changing climate due to global warming in his inauguration speech entitled ‘Whole Life Thinking'. The subject was also discussed further at the CIBSE Natural Ventilation Group event, Passive Building Technology in Practice, 21st June at UCL.
It was serendipitous that my keynote at the Pathways 2 Sustainability
Conference was in the Telus Spark Science Center. The HVAC system was designed
by the Calgary office of Dialog who have described the IEQ systems as;
“Along with lots of natural Calgary light and smart water
use, the building design brings fresh air to every room. Rather than a typical,
forced-air ventilation and cooling system, the building incorporates
displacement ventilation and radiant panels to distribute fresh air and highly
effective heating and cooling for visitor comfort. The atrium and extensive
lobby areas are heated and cooled with a radiant chilled/heated slab system for
a non-intrusive but highly effective conditioning system. Underseat
displacement ventilation is provided in the 250-person IMAX theatre for optimum
thermal comfort and ventilation effectiveness.”
Interestingly, the HVAC zone for the exhibit hall (converted
into the P2S2013 conference space) was tested beyond its functional capacity as over
250 delegates filled a space likely designed for less. (hopefully someone from
Dialog will show up and correct my assumption). Despite the load, the thermal comfort was well beyond
most conference halls that I have visited (and there have been hundreds). The
air quality not so much. As the occupant load increased it was necessary to
open the adjoining doors connecting a large open hallway to the conference room
and that one simple solution seemed to do the trick for most of the attendees.
The point being - despite a heavy occupant load during three days
of rain the radiant cooling panels never once condensed as the air system was
capable of maintaining a lean air mixture.
I really like how the Architectural/Interior Designers and
Mechanical Engineers incorporated the ventilation columns into the space – very
nice.
Brad Struble Telus Spark representative and director of
design gave us the tour and did a great job explaining the project as well as
helping adapt the space to the conference and for the adaptive measures to help
maintain the indoor environmental quality.
You can learn more about the project including the radiant
based HVAC system from this video (can view in Google Chrome).
Excerpt: “This is the third booklet in our PLEA Notes
series. Each of these Notes is intended to deal with one particular and narrow
aspect of design, of a technical /scientific nature. These Notes serve a dual
purpose: to be a learning tool, introducing the subject and discussing it in mainly
qualitative terms, but also to be a design tool, to provide quantitative data
and methods for the consideration of the particular subject matter in design.
An implicit aim is also to create an authoritative reference work, which would provide
a concise but comprehensive summary of the state of the art of the subject.
In this Note 3 the undergraduate student will find part 1,
then sections 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 of part 2 as well as part 3 of particular
interest. The practising designer (using the above sections as introduction)
will - we hope - find part 4 most useful. The research student, or anyone
interested in the whys and wherefores will find part 2 as a unique reference
source.
References for the comfort index data sheets are given in
footnote form, similarly in places where they refer to that page only. General
references are listed in alphabetical order on pages 62 – 63.
We hope that this Note will contribute in some small way to
the creation of better buildings, healthier indoor environments and energy
conservation, thus serve the broad aims of PLEA and a sustainable future.”
Citation: Auliciems, A., Szokolay, S.V. (2007) Thermal Comfort, Design
Tools and Techniques. PLEA Note 3(2nd Ed.), Passive and Low Energy
Architecture International. < http://plea-arch.org/?page_id=125>
accessed April 30th, 2013
The authors review what we know and don’t know about how
thermal comfort and indoor air quality affect performance. The article is
written in the form of answers to 40 frequently asked questions. The authors,
also widely respected, offer opinions based on what the research shows.
Excerpt: “As experienced researchers in the effects of
thermal comfort and indoor air quality on performance, we are often asked to
give our best estimate of how, and to what extent, performance is affected by different
aspects of indoor climate. This article provides a brief summary of our
personal opinions, in the form of answers to 40 frequently asked questions. Our
answers are based on the results of behavioral experiments conducted to date.
We offer no opinions on long-term health effects of indoor environmental
quality. We provide some references to relevant sources, but there is not
enough space for all such references. We list some questions we cannot answer
as topics for future research in this area.”
Excerpt: "Housing investment which improves thermal comfort in the
home can lead to health improvements, especially where the improvements are
targeted at those with inadequate warmth and those with chronic respiratory
disease.
Improvements in warmth and affordable warmth may be an
important reason for improved health. Improved health may also lead to reduced
absences from school or work. Improvements in energy efficiency and provision
of affordable warmth may allow householders to heat more rooms in the house and
increase the amount of usable space in the home. Greater usable living space
may lead to more use of the home, allow increased levels of privacy, and help
with relationships within the home. An overview of the best available research evidence
suggests that housing which promotes good health needs to be an appropriate
size to meet household needs, and be affordable to maintain a comfortable
indoor temperature."
18 Dec, 2012 10:37 CET Indoor environments that are too hot, too cold or draughty
create discomfort and lower human productivity. MSc (Tech) Riikka Holopainen
from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, has written a doctoral thesis on
a new method for estimating the actual level of human thermal comfort in
low-energy buildings. The method is also the first of its kind to be integrated
with a building simulation tool. Factoring in the different ways in which
buildings are used and the different kinds of people using them at the design
stage can help to improve energy efficiency and human comfort.
Energy-efficient passive and zero-energy buildings require
considerably less heating than traditional buildings. Traditional HVAC
solutions are therefore no longer suitable for designing indoor environments
for low-energy buildings.
The Human Thermal Model (HTM) is a new technique developed
by Senior Scientist Riikka Holopainen from VTT in her doctoral thesis, which
can be used to design and create optimal indoor environments for low-energy
buildings. One of the novelties of the method is the fact that it allows
scientists to measure how different solutions are likely to affect human
thermal comfort and the energy efficiency of buildings at the design stage.
The model is based on the physiological thermal control
system of the human body, and it can be used to calculate the actual level of
human thermal comfort in both steady-state and transient thermal environments.
The thesis introduces the first ever mathematical application that integrates a
building simulation tool with human thermal sensation. The model also produces
information about previously complex comparisons, such as the effects of
different structural solutions and HVAC systems on human thermal sensation.
Earlier models for measuring the comfort of indoor
environments have not taken account of the human body’s own thermal control
system. These methods are also insufficient for designing passive and
zero-energy buildings. Models based on laboratory measurements, for example,
overestimate the heat perceived by humans in warm conditions and underestimate
it in cool conditions. They also factor in clothing as a hermetically sealed
unit similar to a diving suit.
Both internal and external factors affect human thermal
sensation. Internal factors include personal characteristics, anatomy, activity
level, whether work is physical, and clothing. External factors include room
temperature, which covers air and surface temperature, as well as air velocity
and relative humidity. Holopainen has demonstrated that the most important
factors contributing to thermal sensation and comfort are air and surface
temperature, activity level and clothing.
Ensuring building
optimisation and human comfort at the design stage
Indoor environments that are too hot, too cold or draughty
create discomfort and lower human productivity. Bed-bound patients in
hospitals, for example, spend a great deal of time lying still and therefore
need a sufficiently warm indoor environment and bedclothes. Checkout operators
in shops, on the other hand, may have to sit in heat in summer and in cold and
draughts in winter. Factoring in the different ways in which buildings are used
and the different kinds of people using them at the design stage can help to
optimise indoor environments and improve human comfort. Employees can also be
given clothing advice.
The Human Thermal Model is suitable for both new builds and
renovations. Engineering firms and the construction industry can now develop
their products to better meet the needs of different buildings and users.
In the future, the HTM and building automation systems will
work together to automatically regulate ventilation, heating and cooling
according to actual needs, incorporating human thermal comfort as an integral
aspect of workplace productivity enhancement.
Source: Holopainen, R., A human thermal model for improved
thermal comfort, Doctor of Science in Technology Thesis, Aalto University, VTT,
December 2012
Excerpt from one conference report: “Occupants were generally
satisfied with their new houses, but were most dissatisfied with the thermal
conditions. A majority (68%) specified that they experienced too warm during
summer. This was the most prevalent complaint, and in agreement with physical
measurements. During winter the occupants were also most dissatisfied with
thermal conditions as 27% of respondents experienced too cold, and 25% found
that the temperature varied too much. Additionally, there were a series of
problems with the technical installations and their use was difficult. The
energy use was higher than expected.”
If you haven’t had a chance to read the study, it concluded with a series of recommendations to increase occupant satisfaction in low energy houses:
• Avoid uncomfortably high temperatures during summer with external solar shading, consider the size of the windows facing towards the sun and make effective use of natural ventilation possible.
• Develop more robust and easy-to use technical installations enabling occupants to control the indoor climate and energy consumption as intended in their new relatively technically advanced house, e.g. by a single user-friendly user interface that can communicate with all relevant technical installations.
"Because of poor acoustics, students in classrooms miss 50 percent of what their teachers say and patients in hospitals have trouble sleeping because they continually feel stressed. Julian Treasure sounds a call to action for designers to pay attention to the “invisible architecture” of sound."
RBc: "Noise goes up - heart rate goes up...this is not good for you."...We love this quote because it enforces what we have been
teaching on indoor environmental quality...so many people believe the indoor air quality
is the sole proxy for IEQ but this is a poor understanding of much more complex
topic. Julian Treasure does a marvelous
job emphasizing where indoor sound quality fits into the grand scheme of
quality indoor spaces.
Once again the building professionals are connected to
health professionals through the needs of the occupants.
With ACCA’s Quality Assurance program and these
manufactures and service providers’ commitment to excellence there can be
confidence in the design and installation of radiant based HVAC systems in
America.
Thanks to all.
Robert Bean, R.E.T., P.L.(Eng.) Registered Engineering Technologist - Building construction (ASET) Professional Licensee (Engineering) - HVAC (APEGGA) Building Sciences / Industry Development
The new 517-bed Chidley North Residence Hall at North
Carolina Central University has received LEED gold certification from the
USGBC.
One of the most interesting energy-saving approaches that
architecture firm Lord, Aeck & Sargent (LAS) took was to design the
building with an ICF (insulated concrete form) bearing wall assembly. The ICF
approach was chosen for its insulating capacity, its speedy and efficient
construction assembly and its performance in an area of the country where there
are great temperature variances. The LAS project manager for Chidley North says
that ICF “provides almost double the thermal insulation of concrete masonry
with conventional insulation.”
Chidley North features a host of energy-saving, water-saving
and other green strategies that earned the building its LEED gold.
For further details contact: Annie Kohut | Kohut Communications
Consulting (tel) 770-913-9747 | (cell) 404-786-6062 (fax) 770-913-3197 |
annielk@bellsouth.net www.kohutcommunications.com | Follow me at http://twitter.com/kohutcomm
Lord, Aeck & Sargent is an award-winning architectural firm serving clients in scientific, academic, historic preservation, arts and cultural, and multi-family housing and mixed-use markets.
I saw Thomas Auer in Winnipeg, Manitoba at the Building Envelope Conference in 2011. Thomas and TransSolar worked on the radiant cooled and heated Manitoba Hydro Building which we featured previously. As we have said before, we really love the message that this firm brings to the world of Architecture, that being the principles of Indoor Climate Engineering (ICE). ICE is different than HVAC engineering which focuses primarily on the building...ICE focus on the energy to condition the occupants; yes HVAC is part of it but the starting point for design is the entire sensory system of occupants, then the enclosure followed by the interior design and then HVAC system.
Here's their corporate mission: Transsolar is a climate engineering firm whose scope is to ensure the highest possible comfort in the built environment with the lowest possible impact on the environment. This is accomplished by developing and validating climate and energy concepts through the recognition that environmental conditions are influenced by all aspects and stages of design.
Two very big buildings made of glass one just received a LEED Platinumdesignation and labelled the most energy efficient building in America (adjacent photo) and the other is becoming fodder for cynical engineers worldwide; building scientist Ted Kesik called it "architectural pornography" – so why the hypocrisy since they’re both made of glass?
We’ve not seen the energy reports on the Aqua Tower (AQT) (we may never see them) but the published results for the Manitoba Hydro building (MHB) are stated here, “The building's target was for a 60 per cent reduction in energy consumption compared to the Canadian Model National Energy Code for Buildings. The goal was to attain LEED Gold certification. It proved to be even more efficient than anticipated, achieving reductions in energy use of over 70 per cent. In May 2012, Manitoba Hydro Place received LEED® Platinum certification, making it the most energy efficient office tower in North America and the only office tower in Canada to receive this prestigious rating.”
So what`s the difference? In the case of MHB it hired indoor climate and energy engineers TransSolar to evaluate the energy and indoor environmental quality of numerous models before the integrated design team selected the one offering the best opportunity to meet the client’s objectives of an energy efficient indoor climate. This process took years of preconstruction planning (started in 2002) ultimately resulting in the double façade building (think a building within a building) having opening windows on all of its office tower floors, conditioned with low temperature radiant heating and high temperature radiant cooling; ventilated with a dedicated outdoor air system (DOAS) with heat recovery - boosted by inline fans in the under floor displacement air system and augment by the solar chimney for pulling draft on the entire structure. The HVAC and domestic plant is a geothermal system powered by hydro and assisted with peaking natural gas boilers. What is so great about this building is the attention given to the mechanical and electrical system and how the architecture flows around it to enable its peak performance – it’s truly ingenious and inspiring and a huge credit to the architectural and engineering teams.
On the other hand, “The Aqua was named the Emporis Skyscraper Award 2009 skyscraper of the year and was shortlisted in 2010 for the biannual International Highrise Award”, perhaps a result of the architectural focus that left the mechanical and electrical engineering teams the responsibility of making the building work – this classic approach is repeatedly demonstrated as being flawed in a world concerned about sustainability.
As we have said over and over again in this journal and in industry publications – first let the engineers and interior designers create the DNA for the building and then use architecture to enable these systems to operate at peak performance.
This inverted process is the DNA of our upcoming cross Canada Tour hosted by Uponor – who by the way supplied the radiant heating and cooling system for the LEED Platinum Manitoba Hydro Building and the radiant heating and cooling system for the LEED Platinum NREL Research Facility and many other high performance buildings.
You’ll not want to miss this course – it will change how you do buildings.
So what do you think? Kind of appropriate after featuring the thermal bridging exposure from the Aqua Tower that Dr. John Straube’s new manual, “High Performance Enclosures” shows up in our mail box!
So I haven’t had a chance to jump fully into this new publication from Building Science Press but what I have seen is excellent. Straube provides with clarity both the graphics and text to explain in detail numerous enclosures from both the low rise and high rise camps. I particularly like the work he’s done on building form and orientation plus the discussions on building loading. As expected there is some duplication for clarification of principles from Straube and Burnett’s 2005, “Building Science for Building Enclosures” which was a modernization and expansion of Hutcheon and Handegord 1983 classic, “Building Science for a Cold Climates”; but unlike the latter references which were targeted more to the engineering sciences, the new publication is more for the practicing engineering, technician, architect and builder - having less theory and more practical example of the what and how to do’s. For a good one-two punch at building science and enclosures you won’t find a better pair of manuals than the 2005 and 2012 publications to keep you company during those cold winter design days.
A note at all publishers…we get the reasoning behind the paper bound publications but really - it’s getting old…we would happily pay a small premium for secured .pdf versions rather than fund the world of transportation, duty and brokerage which adds zero value to the materials. Look at it this way...if we spent less money on zero education value items we could spend more money on the valuable educational items. Those are my thoughts and I'm sticking to them...
Established in 2004, The Journal of Indoor Environmental Quality (JIEQ) in conjunction with Healthy Heating serves as a technical interpreter and consolidator of academic research demonstrating the building and health sciences are inclusive elements. It provides professional development programs based on its analysis to application professionals such as architects, engineers, interior designers and related technicians.
“The quality of housing conditions plays a decisive role in the health status of the residents, because many health problems are either directly or indirectly related to the building itself, the construction materials that were used, and the equipment or the size or structure of the individual dwellings.”
The World Health Organization
"Indoor environmental quality is in part a result of materials and methods of construction which has an influence on occupant health. For this reason, policies around health and construction cannot be treated separately and must be linked together." Source: Bean, R., IAQ Webinar Presentation, 2009
The HVAC system consumes 50-60% of the building energy cost and generates 80-85% of tenant complaints.
Source: U.S. General Services Administration, Public Buildings Service, Office of the Chief Architect
Good Design
“Industrial designers determine the form and interaction qualities of manufactured products...They study people at work, at home and in motion to create satisfying experiences with products from the kitchen and the office to the hospital and the warehouse…” Excerpt from the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).
In our opinion, industrial design has been overlooked by the HVAC industry – illustrated by consumers facing difficulties selling homes with HVAC systems which have “beast in the boiler room.”
Be reminded by S. Claire Conroy from Residential Architecture, "It's time architects of every discipline understand residential architecture for what it really is: everyone's most intimate connection with architecture. It's not simply a “test bed”—it's a vessel for our lives on their most personal level. That makes the stakes very high indeed. No one is more discriminating and demanding than a residential client.”
"A lot of it has to do with how we are responding at a physiological level to what we see as we walk in through the door." Sarah Susanka, Architect
“Industrial designers determine the form and interaction qualities of manufactured products...They study people at work, at home and in motion to create satisfying experiences with products from the kitchen and the office to the hospital and the warehouse…” Excerpt from the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).
"In any industry, one of the most important and difficult tasks is to explain a nuanced process to someone unfamiliar with the field. At its grass roots, design is a process like many others; it has theories, strategies and examples that can be explained on a general level. It’s not a matter of what type of information is given, but rather how it is presented and to what type of audience."
Speaking Design to Non-Designers, IDSA
