Indoor environment quality is an essential for a comfortable living in enclosed spaces. I want to know its relation with environmental sustainability in the buildings.
According to several studies, diseases spread quickly in enclosed spaces. So while staying indoor, the sanitation system must be ensured with proper sunlight and aeration facilities to destroy the spreading of anaerobic bacteria and viruses. Moreover, daily cleaning of the room must be done. Otherwise, sustainability might not be ensured.
Design of green building and use of more renewable energy sources and less use of resources with carbon foot prints can ensure long term sustainability.
Good IEQ requires a careful design of buildings, so that the building itself brings a large part of the thermal comfort, acoustic protection and ambience, lighting and air quality. Then the technical systems (HVAC, artificial lighting) ensure the complement, if required. Such a careful design takes the best from passive design (passive solar heating, natural ventilation, passive ventilative cooling, solar protections, daylighting, etc.) so that the contribution of technical systems is minimised, hence reducing the use of energy agents. More info in the attached paper.
If we make an effort to tackle climate change through high performing buildings, it is because we care about people's lives - our children and all people living on earth now and in the future. However, buildings impact not only on the atmosphere but also in the health and wellbeing of its users.
So, we design buildings with the best possible Indoor Environment Quality because we care about people's health and wellbeing.
The Indoor environment has significant impacts on the health of the population what is the most important indicator for sustainability. Therefore, in urban societies, indoor environment is as important as outside environment. Inclusively, we should remember, that the complex of economy, society and environment. In modern societies, most of economic work is done indoor and provides major time of exposure.
Asif Ali IEQ is a very relevant and often overlooked subject when dealing with sustainable buildings. People often focus on the performance of the building disregarding the user, we can see this on air tight "energy efficient" designs. We should not forget that the sustainability is associated the user experience and the permanence of the building over time. A bad IEQ rebounds on negative health and psychological effects on the users and once the users understand that these problems come from the IEQ they will leave the building. Unfortunately, the symptoms associated to a "sick building syndrome" building are difficult to isolate and often are recognised very late. We should design for the people not for a norm or a label. E