Guest Commentator: Lucas Hamilton, Manager of Applied Building Science, Saint-Gobain North America @SaintGobainNA
Raise Your IEQ: How Systems-Based Design Affects Indoor Environmental Quality
We spend about 90% of our time indoors; a fact that may lead us to wonder how much we really know about IEQ (Indoor Environmental Quality) and how it influences our sense of comfort, productivity, and well-being?
In 2018, three years after opening our new corporate headquarters located in Malvern, PA, Saint-Gobain published a study in partnership with the University of Oregon’s High Performance Environments Lab (HiPE), which revealed that a systems-based design approach utilizing multiple solutions and strategies can have a great impact on a building’s ability to optimize the occupant experience.
We revisited this study in 2021 to see if what we learned then remains true, what has evolved, and what – in a post-pandemic world – has changed.
Adaptability is Key for Occupant Comfort
Making buildings adaptable to their inhabitants shifts the comfort paradigm. Traditionally in building design, elements that improve the employee experience have been viewed as non-essential benefits. Leading employers, owners, and developers are now changing the way they assign value to aspects affecting employee well-being.
Bring the Outdoors, Indoors
Biophilic design connects people with nature by introducing natural elements to indoor design, for a healthier and more productive indoor environment. Whether via windows to actual nature or interiors that echo natural tones, introducing natural elements can have significant impact on our overall sense of well-being.
The Elements of Indoor Environmental Quality
As in nature, there are four primary elements that influence how we feel indoors.
- Acoustical Comfort – In any building, it’s affected by sound generated by people, building systems, and outdoor sources. These distractions can make it harder for people to concentrate on tasks or rest easily.
- Visual Comfort – It begins with availability of natural light, as well as the attenuation of solar heat, and can be enhanced by the presence of windows that offer views of nature.
- Thermal Comfort – More complex than just temperature, this requires a balance of variables including airflow velocity, air and radiant temperatures, and relative humidity.
- Indoor Air Quality – Occupants always breathe easier knowing that, well, they’re breathing easier. Advancing air quality requires the consideration of many factors ranging from outdoor air quality to interior finishes and furnishings, mechanical system performance, the control of odors, and the absence of internal pollutants.
Perhaps one of the most important things we have learned is this: as a dynamic building adapts to occupants’ needs, those needs themselves change. Improvement, then, means being committed to that process of changing and adapting as people learn how to take better advantage of their environment.
