English

Annex 31 is a multinational project to support researchers engaged in determining how to measure the effects of buildings on their immediate, regional and global environments. Fourteen member countries of the International Energy Agency's (lEA) Implementing Agreement on Energy Conservation in Buildings and Community Systems are involved in the work, divided into 8 tasks.

In order to study pollution dispersion in built up area, aeraulic simulation at reduced scale in a boundary layer wind tunnel is intensively used at CSTB. The experimental set up and the associated procedures are described here. A comparison with complementary approaches developed at CSTB, numerical simulation and full scale measurements using tracer gas release is also provided.

The EQuity model is a Life Cycle Assessment-based tool aimed at evaluating and improving building products Environmental Quality aspects. Unlike most "classical" LCAs, EQuity is strongly based on users' statements about their perception of environmental quality, as well as their goals and constrains pertaining to a given product study. Two applications of the EQuity model are presented in this paper. They illustrate the benefits of the case-by-case approach.

The high environmental_ quality of the buildings in the south of France requires a good control of the summer thermal comfort. For economical and ecological reasons this purpose must be reached essentially by architectural design. In the program "Haute Qualite Environnementale" of the "Plan-Construction". 58 collective housings have been built in Nice in a dense urban zone with a principal consideration to the summer comfort, specially to allow a good transversal ventilation in the moderate hot and humid climate of this city.

Health complaints related to indoor air quality are increasingly common. Hence, it is well known that environmental factors act on the emergence of certain illnesses. Today, many people consider that their health problems are due to a specific building environment. Chemical, microbiological and particulate pollutants are of interest, but only as one category of potential factors. Other risk factors have been identified ranging from the individual's sex and health status to psychosociological issues and buildings characteristics.

In many cases, it is possible to achieve a satisfactory comfort in summer in residential buildings with purely passive means (thermal inertia, solar protection, night ventilation). These parameters have to be taken into account at the earliest stages of building design, which requires guidance documents and simplified tools. We developed both, on the basis on a simple RC model with a particular attention paid to the impact of the outdoor noise (related to the windows opening at night).

ATEOUE is a French working group created in June 1993 by the Ministry of Housing in order to harmonise and to facilitate the develop merit of tools concerning the improvement of building environmental quality (assessment methods, books of specifications, recommendations, etc. ... ). The methodological aspects play an important role in ATEQUE. ATEOUE is composed of the authorities concerned, and of 26 members representing all the categories of building professional actors (researchers, manufacturers, owners, designers, builders, consultants, service providers).

The objective of the RESET project was to quantify the savings that could be made by resetting the energy related controls of buildings to their original or optimum settings. The method was to identify a range of office buildings and carry out energy and management audits. Advice was given on incorrectly set controls, and estimates were made of the potential savings if the controls were set correctly. Cost savings of between 10% and 30% were almost always identified and could be made at little or no cost.

Renewable energy, Rational Use of Energy, and Sustainable 'Design are aspects for the coming building programmes, among many other qualitative aspects. How could sustainable use of energy be integrated in planning and building process?

The problem of optimal insulation thicknesses is one of the simplest that can be addressed by energy analysis. The authors begin with a simple analytical approach, and go on to describe detailed numerical work, based in the definition and parameterisation of a standard dwelling. Sensitivity of the results to large uncertainties in embodied energy data and building lifetime are investigated. The first conclusion is that insulation thicknesses in UK buildings are suboptimal in energy terms. This conclusion appears to be robust.