office building

The French indoor air quality observatory (OQAI) was set up by the French authorities in 2001 with the objective to collect data on indoor pollutants in various indoor environments to be used for public policies. Funded exclusively by public funding, the OQAI is coordinated by the scientific and technical center for building (CSTB) and involved an extensive network of partners across France in charge of the field campaigns and the laboratory analyses. To date, nationwide surveys were carried out in dwellings (2003-2005), schools (2013-2017), and office buildings (2013-2017).

People spend more than 80% of their time indoors. In contrast to ambient air, no (legal) limits for indoor particulate matter exist, although there are WHO guidelines. In the Netherlands a measurement protocol to determine the PM2.5 in office buildings has been developed including 5 quality classes. However at the moment no simple guidelines or models are available which can support the design and in-use phases to predict the PM2.5 concentration in office buildings and schools.

The GK environmental house is the first office building in Norway built according to the passive house concept. In such buildings, it is crucial to develop a ventilation strategy to reduce the energy use outside of the operating time. An optimal operating strategy has been developed for cold days, when the outdoor temperature falls well below 0 °C, which is presented in this paper. Indeed, these conditions correspond to the largest heat loss.

An inherent element of the passive house is the system of exhaust ventilation in air supply. According to their class, air filters used in ventilation systems stop the contamination, but may also be the main source of secondary indoor contamination during long-term use.

In this paper, the change of energy use by telecommuting (working at home) is simulated for  residential and office buildings by modeling the  differences in the occupants’ behavior. By summing  up these results, the change in annual energy use in  Osaka City caused by the saturation of  telecommuting is evaluated in three dissemination  scenarios for the transformation of office buildings.

Energy savings by integrating the daylighting availability in the electric lighting management contributes to the realization of ‘Green Building’. This paper provides a simulation and calculation of office building in North China with RADIANCE software on the basis of theoretical analysis, which focuses on the influence of Window-to-Wall Ratio (WWR), sill height, glazing transmittance and window shape on Lighting Savings (LS). The study finds out the relationship between those window parameters and LS. The results may be reference for  designers as daylighting is involved.

Cool roof is a well-documented passive cooling strategy for buildings in several climate conditions. The mechanism consists of the reduction of the heat load entering the roof, which is characterized by high solar reflectance and high thermal emittance. The purpose of this paper is to study the coupled effect produced by such a technology. First, the passive cooling contribution is quantified, then, the “active” contribution is investigated.

Utilizing a cool roof is an efficient way to reduce the cooling energy use of a building. Cool roofs, however, may increase heating energy use in winter. In cold climates, during the winter the sun angle is lower, days are shorter, sky is cloudy, and most heating occur during early morning or evening hours when the solar intensity is low. In addition, the roof may be covered with snow for most of the heating season. All these lead to a lower (than what is commonly thought) winter time heating penalties for cool roofs. 

The airtightness of office and educational buildings influences energy use and thermal comfort. A leaky building is likely to have a high use of energy and thermal discomfort. The knowledge of real airtightness levels of entire buildings and their impact on the energy use is very low, except for a study carried out in the USA. Therefore two different methods of airtightness testing were applied to six entire Swedish office and educational buildings built since 2000. The first method involves using the ventilation system of the building and the second one to use a number of blower doors.

In this study, an attempt is made to define building design variables for a medium-sized office building with individual office cells in order to provide sufficient summer comfort without active cooling in a moderate climate.
Firstly, an approach to take realistic window-opening behavior into account is proposed based on observational data in literature. A stochastic model is defined for an active and a passive user, representing the variability between individuals.