Sustainable building equipment : an excursus through main environmental performance rating systems. Part 2 : Indoor environmental quality & quality of service

Through the analysis of the main international environmental performance rating systems (BREEAM, LEED and GBTool) this work aims to show international design tendencies concerning sustainable building equipment requirements and to provide to designers and researchers a broad view of sustainable building equipment solutions. Hence a particular attention was paid to the assessment approach provided by these systems for each requirement, focussing on the comparison of the building performance to a benchmark, on compliance with qualitative indications or use of best technologies. Specifically this second part of the work focuses on one hand on the equipment requirements aiming to achieve high levels of indoor environmental comfort for the occupants in terms of air quality and of thermal, visual and acoustical comfort; on the other hand on the requirements that an equipment must give to be an high quality service, that means being flexible and adaptable to changing requirements, easily controllable during the operation phase and capable of maintaining unchanged performance.