Annex 31 is a multinational project to support researchers engaged in determining how to measure the effects of buildings on their immediate, regional and global environments. Fourteen member countries of the International Energy Agency's (lEA) Implementing Agreement on Energy Conservation in Buildings and Community Systems are involved in the work, divided into 8 tasks.

Increasing demands for energy saving and a higher degree of comfort in rooms compels designers or architects to use more sophisticated analysis methods. The measurement in situ, numerical simulation (CFO), and wind tunnel investigations are three of methods which are always utilised to analyse or to assess air flow in rooms and their environment. However, these methods remain generally very difficult for the majority of the designers or the architects.

With the improvement of thermal building Insulation the percentage of energy losses due to air exchange becomes an increasingly· important factor in building energy demand. In order to optimize infiltration and ventilation and to minimize the energy demand of low energy buildings, it is necessary to install an appropriate mechanical ventilation system. Different ventilation strategies can be used: Extract ventilation and supply I extract ventilation systems for buildings as well as single-zone ventilation units with or without heat recovery.

The use of air-conditioning is known to be an energy-intensive solution to the problem of providing thermally comfortable conditions in buildings. This has led to the adoption of new techniques, such as displacement ventilation and chilled ceiling systems as a means for providing the cooling requirements. In addition, benefits are gained in terms of indoor air quality and comfort. However, there is a lack of information about the effect that chilled ceiling has on displacement air flow, and the corresponding implications for occupant thermal comfort.

The objectives of this paper are to review measurements of airtightness in two domestic refurbishment projects in England, and to attempt to determine the effects of basic construction method and approach to refurbishment on airtightness.

Indoor Air Quality analysis needs at first an accurate prediction of indoor pollutant concentration levels. However, most of pollutant concentration prediction models consider the pollutants as passive elements. Our study introduces the more common gas-phase chemical reactions occurring in indoor spaces. We developed a model taking into account more than 20 different reactions influencing the concentration level prediction of NOx compounds, ozone, carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide from the knowledge acquired in the field of tropospheric chemistry.

This paper describes the measured and calculated results of air humidity and profiles of tracer gas in a residential apartment in Taipei city, Taiwan. A complete multizone indoor air quality model was used to evaluate the test results. The concentration of C02 were employed to investigate the indoor pollutant transport. Also, the indoor air humidity was studied in order to evaluate the indoor moisture effects on human. The data from the measurements were used as simulation input data for the calculation of indoor air flow rates and pollutant concentrations.

Health complaints related to indoor air quality are increasingly common. Hence, it is well known that environmental factors act on the emergence of certain illnesses. Today, many people consider that their health problems are due to a specific building environment. Chemical, microbiological and particulate pollutants are of interest, but only as one category of potential factors. Other risk factors have been identified ranging from the individual's sex and health status to psychosociological issues and buildings characteristics.

The paper describes a pilot-study set up to identify links between internal environmental quality and perceived well-being in a 1970's higher educational building housing the Mackintosh School of Architecture. The supposition is that such links may in turn inhibit/promote greater productivity. The study embraces a variety of working situations for staff and students and explores levels of satisfaction and dissatisfaction by means of questionnaire.

In many cases, it is possible to achieve a satisfactory comfort in summer in residential buildings with purely passive means (thermal inertia, solar protection, night ventilation). These parameters have to be taken into account at the earliest stages of building design, which requires guidance documents and simplified tools. We developed both, on the basis on a simple RC model with a particular attention paid to the impact of the outdoor noise (related to the windows opening at night).