Airbase publication

There is little knowledge on if and how indoor environmental quality influences students’ attendance and productivity. However, this issue has been of growing interest the recent years in the scientific community and results are showing that student learning performance is significantly affected by indoor environmental quality factors. In the present study the learning performance is examined through numerical test scores achieved by primary school students in their classrooms.

The present study investigates the indoor thermal comfort perceived by students through a questionnaire survey conducted during spring 2013 in naturally ventilated primary schools in Athens. Thermal environment parameters such as air temperature, relative humidity, air velocity and mean radiant temperature were simultaneously measured. Then, Fanger’s indices of Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and Percentage of People Dissatisfied (PPD) were calculated by using clothing and metabolic rates.

The exposure of children to indoor air pollutants in school classrooms might cause them adverse health effects. In order to confront this issue, the in-depth study and evaluation of the indoor air quality in classrooms is necessary. The aims of this study are to characterize the environmental factors that affect indoor air quality.

Demand-controlled ventilation has been proposed to improve indoor air quality and to save energy for ventilation. It is important to estimate occupancy in a building precisely in order to determine adequate ventilation airflow rates, especially when people are the major source of indoor contaminants such as in office buildings. In this paper, we investigate occupancy estimation methods using a dynamic neural network model based on carbon dioxide concentration in a space.

Buildings account for 40% of Europe's energy use and a third of its greenhouse gas emissions. Building materials currently used in the construction of building have low solar reflectance, leading to an increase of surface temperature of the building. The aim of the present study is to develop various inorganic and colour change coatings for increasing the solar reflectance of buildings. A series of inorganic coatings are examined and tested.

In the last years there is a strong interest for application of bioclimatic techniques and practices in urban neighborhoods and open spaces. This paper presents a bioclimatic study of an open space in an urban area by the use of simulation tools giving emphasis on the replacement of conventional materials with cool materials. Routes linking traditional monuments in the Greek city of Florina are characterized of decreased human thermal comfort conditions during summer time.

Since 2007, more than half of world population lives in urban areas and its activity leads to an increase of building energy demand notably in summer. The temperature rise of densely built areas is mainly due to landscaping and anthropogenic heat fluxes such as air conditioning systems. Acting on urban landscaping, building density, surface albedo or green area can mitigate the urban heat island with direct and indirect improvement of building energy performances.  

Earth-to-air heat exchangers are energy-efficient systems that use the ground for cooling in summer and heating in winter. Design, simulation and planning tools are available in the market, and earth-to-air heat exchangers are well-accepted in the built environment. Furthermore, there is a wide knowledge on their performance in operation. Based on long experiences in the design and operation of earth-to-air heat exchangers, pre-defined operation strategies are applied in ventilation concepts.

Universities’ campuses can be viewed as small communities considering their size, users and mixed complex activities. The energy and environmental impact caused by universities due to activities and operations in teaching and research could be considerably reduced by an effective choice of organizational and managerial measures. In addition, there is considerable room for improvement and research potential in energy management, when leaving from the single building aspect and moving towards a “district” approach, where a set of different buildings and outdoor spaces are considered.

Energy saving in the building sector is one of the key issue to achieve environmental targets at national and EU levels. Even if characterised by a large number of different climatic conditions, Italy energy policies were aimed at reducing the energy consumption related to space heating in buildings, neglecting other relevant energy uses as space cooling, which has dramatically increased in the past years. The recent EU Directive for the State Members is to assess the energy quality of buildings taking into account all the relevant energy uses.