IAQ

Over time with thermal and energy regulations, buildings are increasingly insulated and airtight to control better the heat exchanges between the indoor and outdoor environments. The primary function of the mechanical ventilation system is to ensure healthy air by diluting odours and humidity with fresh air. However, in many situations, windows opening can be much more effective in terms of thermal comfort, air quality, or release heat loads due to a higher air change rate than the mechanical ventilation system itself.

The ASHRAE Standard Project Committee on Ventilation and Acceptable Indoor Air Quality in Residential Buildings (62.2) has proposed an addendum to the standard that adds a harm-based Indoor Air Quality procedure as an alternative compliance method. The IAQ Procedure only considers 3 contaminants and only the sum of the harm from those three contaminants needs to be limited. This was determined by completing four stages of research.

When an infant is born, he or she begins independently breathing for the first time, meaning that immediately his or her lungs start becoming a principal interface between the outside air and the organism being considerably and continuously influenced by the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). Daycare centers (DCCs) or early life educational institutions, the first program for the social development of young children (generally aged 0-5 years old), are the most important place besides their home.

It is no longer sustainable to look at the performance of buildings in isolation of people that use them. This paper examines what is involved in assessing how a building performs for people. The Rose Bowl at Leeds Beckett University is an iconic building designed to BREEAM Excellent. The experience of staff and pupils in classrooms, offices and lecture theatres was proving to be less than excellent.

Indoor air quality is a major area of concern in northern housing and could be influenced by ventilation. The required ventilation rate set by North American ventilation standards (ASHRAE 62.2, CSA-F326) is calculated on the basis of fixed floor area and number of bedrooms or people. The heat/energy recovery ventilators (HRV/ERV) on the market offer constant airflows and are selected to meet the required ventilation.

The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) is in Boulder, Colorado USA at 5280 feet above sea level. The campus has approximately 12 million square feet of infrastructure spanning over 100 years of building infrastructure evolution. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the University employed a science-based approach with campus researchers including aerosol scientists and campus epidemiologist and industry standards to inform a layered risk management strategy for an on-campus learning experience during the pandemic.

Indoor air quality (IAQ) plays an intrinsic role in occupant comfort, and should be evaluated as a key building performance indicator of early design phases. However, IAQ is very complex due to a plethora of chemical compounds in the indoor air and also depends on the activities in the building. Therefore, IAQ assessment is often not comprehensively considered, or applied only during late project phases. This study reviewed how Building Information Modeling (BIM) could be applied for IAQ performance analysis, to provide a more holistic design process.