As cities continue to expand and densify, understanding how buildings affect people’s perception and experience of the acoustic environment in context becomes more relevant. This paper presents a conceptual framework of the influence of façades on the urban soundscape, based on the ISO 12913 series, in order to analyze the three main elements of the soundscape: people, acoustic environment and context, along with façade as a fourth element. The methodology included literature review, as well as an exploration of the ISO 12913 methods for soundscape assessment via soundwalks and laboratory experiments involving a total of forty-three (n = 43) participants. The results provide a promising framework for façade analysis to progress toward the integration of human-centered approaches into the field of façade acoustics and complement current building physics practice. ... Read more

Personalised Environmental Control Systems (PECS) enable occupants to locally adjust environmental parameters without affecting others. Rooted in the fields of thermal and air quality management, this approach is key for enhancing satisfaction and well-being in the built environment by empowering occupants to control their immediate surroundings. Moreover, it offers energy-saving potential by optimizing conditions in targeted areas rather than across the entire environment. Within the framework of the IEA EBC Annex 87, the concept was explored for the first time in the acoustic domain. After defining Acoustic PECS, a systematic review according to PRISMA guidelines was conducted to unpack (1) technologies in the literature aligning with this concept; (2) their impact on occupants; and (3) current limitations. The literature search, conducted on Scopus, Web of Science, APA, and PubMed, included field or laboratory studies assessing systems enabling local acoustic control in settings that are relevant for office environments. Review papers, medical device studies, and reports without insights on occupant impact were excluded. Thirty-eight studies were selected, covering active and passive systems, building-attached, furniture-integrated, and wearable devices. The qualitative analysis highlighted potential positive effects in challenging acoustic environments, including reduced annoyance, improved work performance, masking or cancellation of intrusive noises, and enhancements in short-term memory, among other benefits, despite existing technological and methodological limitations. The evidence collected is constrained by the limited number of identified studies and methodological gaps stemming from the relatively wide focus of the studies where such devices were investigated. The definition of Acoustic PECS provides a foundation for future research, guiding the development of these systems and fostering high-quality and consistent evidence of their impacts. ... Read more

The availability of systems that can locally adjust environmental parameters holds the potential to enhance building occupant satisfaction by considering individual sensitivities, expectations, and needs. To this aim, Personalised Environmental Control Systems (PECS) are being studied as solutions that can provide individually controlled environments in the immediate surroundings of an occupant, without affecting directly the entire space and other occupants’ environment. The concept has been primarily developed to address individual control of the thermal environment and perceived air quality, as in chairs with heating/cooling functions and desks equipped with personalized ventilation systems. By extending the concept of PECS to the acoustic domain, a framework on Acoustic PECS is here introduced and exemplified. The study builds on ongoing research within the IEA EBC - Annex 87, dedicated to investigating the Energy and Indoor Environmental Quality Performance of Personalised Environmental Control Systems. ... Read more

Natural ventilation in a building is an effective way to achieve acceptable indoor air quality. Ventilation dilutes contaminants such as bioeffluents generated by occupants, substances emitted from building materials, and the water vapor generated by occupants’ activities. In a building that requires heating and cooling, adequate ventilation is crucial to minimize energy consumption while maintaining healthy indoor air quality. However, measuring the actual magnitude of the natural ventilation rate, including infiltration through the building envelope and airflow through the building openings, is not always feasible. Although international and national standards suggested the required ventilation rates to maintain acceptable indoor air quality in buildings, they did not offer action plans to achieve or evaluate those design ventilation rates in buildings in use. In this study, the occupant-generated carbon dioxide (CO2) tracer gas decay method was applied to estimate the ventilation rates in an office room in Seoul, South Korea, from summer to winter. Using the method, real-time ventilation rates can be calculated by monitoring indoor and outdoor CO2 concentrations without injecting a tracer gas. For natural ventilation in the test room, 145 mm-diameter circular openings on the fixed glass were used. As a result, first, the indoor CO2 concentrations were used as an indicator to evaluate how much the indoor air quality deteriorated when all the windows were closed in an occupied office room compared to the international standards for indoor air quality. Moreover, we found out that the estimated ventilation rates varied depending on various environmental conditions, even with the same openings for natural ventilation. Considering the indoor and outdoor temperature differences and outdoor wind speeds as the main factors influencing the ventilation rates, we analyzed how they affected the ventilation rates in the different seasons of South Korea. When the wind speeds were calm, less than 2 m/s, the temperature difference played as a factor that influenced the estimated ventilation rates. On the other hand, when the temperature differences were low, less than 3 °C, the wind speed was the primary factor. This study raises awareness about the risk of poor indoor air quality in office rooms that could lead to health problems or unpleasant working environments. This study presents an example of estimating the ventilation rates in an existing building. By using the presented method, the ventilation rate in an existing building can be simply estimated while using the building as usual, and appropriate ventilation strategies for the building can be determined to maintain the desired indoor air quality. ... Read more

People in cities are often exposed to complex mixtures of sounds, some originating from nature along with some created by human activities like traffic noise, sounds of industrial machinery, or music. This research aimed to study how the acoustic environment of a university campus is perceived by people. The procedures for soundscape data collection and analysis were based on the ISO 12913 series. 30 volunteers divided into four groups participated in a “soundwalk” at the campus of the architecture school in Detmold, Germany, filling out questionnaires while sound measurements and recordings were being taken. After the soundwalk, the data from the questionnaires, sound measurements, recordings, pictures and videos were analyzed. The findings suggest that people’s perception of sound is susceptible to the context, as participants seemed to shift their preference according to the ongoing activities that drew attention, such as a construction site, sounds from children playing, music and groups of people. The results provide new evidence and insights about the acoustic environment and the soundscape of the university campus and can inform stakeholders to improve environmental quality. ... Read more

Current societal challenges like climate change led to a general agreement that our cities need to become greener and our lifestyles more sustainable. This transformation of our daily living environments can also impact the prevalence of non-communicable diseases as a global disease burden of our time. These positive impacts of horizontal green spaces on human health are widely recognized. However, it is still unclear whether the same is true for green walls, as a promising nature-based solution for dense urban spaces which is increasingly applied. To date, the available research on green walls has not been systematically synthesized along the potential impact pathways of reducing environmental stressors (Mitigation), restoring capacities (Restoration), and promoting healthier behavior (Instoration). We conducted a systematic review of 30 reviews to synthesize available evidence on all three pathways and direct health outcomes, following the established strategies of PICOS and PRISMA. We assessed the review quality through AMSTAR. We found strong consistent evidence that green walls can mitigate urban heat island effects (daylight surface temperature: -0.3 °C to -31.9°, daylight air temperature: -0 °C to -8.7 °C), air pollution (PM2.5: -25% to -99%, PM10: -23% to -60%), and noise pollution (sound pressure level: -1dBA to -5dBA). We found some evidence for disaster risk reduction and restoration effects. There were no reviews on the instoration pathway or direct health outcomes. The underlying reviews rated low according to the AMSTAR checklist, which might limit our findings. We recognize a generally young research field and conclude that more in-field studies are needed in all pathways to better understand the relationship between green walls and health. ... Read more

Façades cover a significant amount of surfaces in cities and are in constant interaction with the acoustic environment. Noise pollution is one of the most concerning burdens for public health and wellbeing; however, façade acoustic performance is generally not considered in outdoor spaces, in contrast to indoor spaces. This study presents a systematic literature review examining 40 peer-reviewed papers regarding the effects of façades on the urban acoustic environment and the soundscape. Façades affect sound pressure levels and reverberation time in urban spaces and can affect people’s perception of the acoustic environment. The effects are classified into three groups: Effects of façades on the urban acoustic environment, including sound-reflecting, sound-absorbing and sound-producing effects; Effects of façades on the urban soundscape, including auditory and non-auditory effects; Effects of the context on the acoustic environment around façades, including boundary effects and atmospheric effects. ... Read more