Providing indoor air of high quality: challenges and opportunities

Comprehensive field studies in different parts of the world have documented that highpercentages of occupants in many offices and similar buildings find the indoor air quality(IAQ) unacceptable and suffer from SBS symptoms. This occurs even though existingventilation standards and guidelines are met and even though measured concentrations ofpollutants in the air are way below any limits or guideline values. A series of recentindependent studies has documented that mediocre IAQ also has a negative impact on theproductivity of office workers. This provides a strong economic incentive to design for highIAQ in the future. A paradigm change is needed where we try to satisfy even the mostsensitive persons in a space.Compared to todays practice, this may require that we improve IAQ by several orders ofmagnitude. This paper will discuss how such a dramatic improvement can be realized withoutincreasing ventilation. Four methods are suggested as means to reach this ambitious goal ofsatisfying all people. Applying these simultaneously may even allow for reduced ventilationand energy consumption. Sensory measurements are of prime importance in this endeavour.