sustainability

Open offices, where more than one person works, have been used frequently in recent years. However, there are many studies on the efficiency of the indoor air quality of the employees in these offices. It has also been shown that the risk of cross-contamination is higher in such offices during the COVID period, but this risk can be reduced by increasing the amount of fresh air.

The Proceedings of the 40th AIVC - 8th TightVent - 6th venticool Conference: "From energy crisis to sustainable indoor climate - 40 years of AIVC" held in Ghent, Belgium on 15-16 October 2019.

The Presentations at the 40th AIVC - 8th TightVent - 6th venticool Conference: "From energy crisis to sustainable indoor climate - 40 years of AIVC" held in Ghent, Belgium on 15-16 October 2019.

In 2017 the Danish Building and Property Agency started a project titled “Avoiding energy waste in ventilation systems” by tracking the actual energy use in a sample of their 4 million m2 portfolio of buildings through on-line energy management tools. The project is not complete, but the key preliminary findings  described in this paper are: 

Thermal comfort improvement at the lowest energy consumption is a key issue when dealing with sustainability in buildings. An appropriate passive design is mandatory under those circumstances. Prior to construction, simulation tools help to make designs more sustainable. However, it is recognized a gap between real performance and the predicted one. This article presents the comfort methodology applied in an office building located in the north of Spain, characterized by a continental Mediterranean climate.

Over the last three years the understanding, adoption and use of BIM has gained international momentum.

In Portugal, the external thermal insulation systems (ETIS) are nowadays a current technical solution in residential buildings, contrasting with the rarely used internal thermal insulation systems (ITIS). In this paper, a quantitative analysis on ITIS is done based on three hygrothermal façade requirements: interstitial condensations, thermal bridges, and temperature variations across the external wall. Computer simulation was used as research tool.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in many ways is a methodology which building industry is looking towardsto give the answers on how to assess sustainability of buildings. In Hong Kong, like many othercountries, its application is limited by the availability of credible assessment tools in the market. Thispaper provides the details on the processes and findings of a comprehensive study initiated by theGovernment to derive a LCA tool for the use of the local building industry, addressing on researches thatare needed to really make LCA part of the answer to sustainability assessment.