English

There are a lot of aspects for evaluation of odor. Not only the hedonics aspects but also thepleasantness aspects are very important for the building design. Authors have investigated the sensoryevaluation of odor from building materials and turned our attentions to the psychological process ofodor evaluation. In this paper, odors emitted from four building materials that is wood, wood flooring,Tatami (Japanese traditional rush mat) and concrete were adopted and the sensory evaluation tests byhuman subjects were conducted.

The methodology to describe the individual difference in temperature regulation of human body intransient state is proposed in this paper. In order to clarify the individual difference experimentally, thechange in skin and core temperatures was measured for four subjects exposed to a thermal transientcondition including stepwise air temperature change of coming and going to lower and highertemperature condition from thermally neutral condition. The differences in core temperature andregulatory responses were found to be significant.

Outbreaks of Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) first gained attention in the 1970s in the USA, with thedevelopment of more energy-efficient buildings that depend on mechanical ventilation systems tocirculate fresh air, as well as to control air temperature and sometimes humidity.SBS at office building and so on is not such a severe problem, but, a similar syndrome has beenrecently reported with increasing frequency in airtight new houses in Japan, that is, Sick HouseSyndrome (SHS). We have conducted the survey concerning SHS in Fukushima city, northeast area ofJapan since 2003.

To promote the effort for energy conservation, it is also important to estimate the indoor environmentalquality (IEQ) from the aspect of office workers productivity. In this paper, a field survey in a call-centerwas explained with the main result relating the indoor air temperature and the performance of thecommunicators. Then, an example of economical effect of changing the preset temperature of theair-conditioning system in summer was estimated based on the findings from the field survey.

The double-glazed external wall (double-skin) system is an effective passive technique that candecrease solar heat gain into the building. Detailed information concerning the thermal characteristicsof the double skin is necessary to accomplish a good design for thermal comfort and energy-saving.In this paper, the 3-dimensional thermal characteristics of the double skin that had the openingspartially installed and was partially shaded by the adjacent building were investigated by a fieldmeasurement.

We developed an air cleaner (AC) for chemical sensitivity (CS) patients. The AC have a high efficiencyair filter and a special activated carbon filter to remove airborne particles and gaseous contaminants.Using the AC, we conducted a monitoring experiment to investigate improvement of indoor air quality(IAQ) in the actual residences of CS patients. In the experiment, IAQ in the residences of nine CSpatients was measured before and after AC operation.

The gas cooking device and the induction heating (IH) cooking heater is used for cooking. Weexamined a difference of diffusion characteristics of odor emitted at the gas cooking device and the IHcooking heater. The IH cooking heater has the advantage that it does not give out carbon dioxide (CO2)from burning during cooking. We evaluated deodorization efficiency of a new system which wasdeveloped to purify air pollution gas generated during cooking without using an exhaust air duct.

This report describes the results from the questionnaire and detailed survey conducted in 2004 to 2006.The 15 items of questionnaire included in facilities management, maintenance management, savingenergy, art gallery facilities. The number of art galleries investigated by questionnaire survey is about171 art galleries in Japan. Then we scanned findings during about 1 year 6 months to get speculationhaving high reliability and summarized a tendency and a characteristic based on the result. Fromthesurvey results, it shows the tendency and characteristics about each item.

Urban indoor air quality (IAQ) is an international health issue, since city dwellers spend 90% of theirtime indoors. Research by a number of authors is reviewed here, demonstrating a range of capacitiesof indoor plants to improve IAQ and promote occupant wellbeing. Our laboratory studies, with nineindoor plant species, and our field studies in 60 offices, show that potted-plants can reliably reducetotal volatile organic compound (TVOC) loads, a major class of indoor pollutants, by 75%, to below100 ppb. They work equally well with or without air-conditioning, and in light or dark.

In Thailand, the emissions of air pollutants from industrial areas are one of the main sources of airpollution. It is generally believed that indoor air pollution such as VOCs as negative causes for ahealth risk. In our research, we measured the concentration of two Volatile organic compounds,formaldehyde and isopropyl alcohol, emissions from sheet-fed offset lithographic printingoperations during January - July 2006 in Bangkok, Thailand. The portable ambient air analyzer wereused to collect and analyze formaldehyde and isopropyl alcohol concentration.