Assessing Indoor Air Quality and ventilation to limit the spread of airborne pathogens – a review

The corona pandemic underlined a lack of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) and<br/>ventilation. Consequently, to limit the spread of the virus, researchers explored several indicators that, through different approaches, assess IAQ and ventilation performance in indoor spaces. This paper gives an overview of those indicators and assessment methods used to...

Effects of COVID-19 measures on ventilation in secondary schools in the Netherlands

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of ventilation for ensuring occupants’ health was widely stressed, especially for densely occupied places such as schools (Ding et al, 2022). Correspondingly, new protocols of ventilation were implemented in school buildings among many countries and regions. In the Netherlands, school classrooms were...

University students’ perception of the sound environment at their home study places

People are staying indoors for most of their time (on average 90%), where they are exposed to different environmental stimuli (e.g., noise, temperature) that are related to the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) factors (Bluyssen, 2020). Students in higher education spend substantial time at their study places (at home or educational buildings)...

The need for occupant-related and building-related indicators in our guidelines for indoor environmental quality

Research has shown that, even though the indoor environmental conditions seem to comply with current guidelines and those conditions seem ‘comfortable’ enough, staying indoors is not good for our health. Reasons for this discrepancy might be the fact that these guidelines are based on single-dose response relationships to prevent negative...

Qualitative classification of energy consuming habits of young home occupants

Two main strategies have generally been used for tackling energy reduction: one dealing with the design and development of building systems and appliances that are engineered to be as efficient as possible while meeting standards, the other addressing the user, usually through campaigns, advertisements, or physical interventions, with the...

Botanical Biofiltration: Experimental Protocol and Method

Vegetation systems in combination with biofiltration processes are emerging processes that are expected to have beneficial effects on the improvement of indoor air quality (IAQ). Common indoor plants may provide a valuable strategy to avoid rising levels of indoor air pollution. In an active vegetation system air cleaning rates may be...

Designing an Individually Controlled System based on children’s’ perception and preferences of IEQ in a classroom

This paper aims to design an “individually controlled system” (ICS) for children in class-rooms based on their preferences and needs. It is well known that a higher satisfaction of in-door environmental quality (IEQ), including thermal, air, visual and acoustical quality, can be achieved by giving occupants control over their local environment....