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Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. HVAC system design is a subdiscipline of mechanical engineering, based on the principles of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer. "Refrigeration" is sometimes added to the field's abbreviation as HVAC&R or HVACR, or "ventilation" is dropped, as in HACR.
Indoor air quality (IAQ) is the air quality within buildings and structures. Poor indoor air quality due to indoor air pollution is known to affect the health, comfort, and well-being of building occupants. It has also been linked to sick building syndrome, respiratory issues, reduced productivity, and impaired learning in schools. Common pollutants of indoor air include: secondhand tobacco smoke, air pollutants from indoor combustion, radon, molds and other allergens, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, legionella and other bacteria, asbestos fibers, carbon dioxide, ozone and particulates. Source control, filtration, and the use of ventilation to dilute contaminants are the primary methods for improving indoor air quality.
Environmental health is the branch of public health concerned with all aspects of the natural and built environment affecting human health. In order to effectively control factors that may affect health, the requirements that must be met in order to create a healthy environment must be determined. The major sub-disciplines of environmental health are environmental science, toxicology, environmental epidemiology, and environmental and occupational medicine.
Ventilation is the intentional introduction of outdoor air into a space. Ventilation is mainly used to control indoor air quality by diluting and displacing indoor pollutants; it can also be used to control indoor temperature, humidity, and air motion to benefit thermal comfort, satisfaction with other aspects of the indoor environment, or other objectives.
The Greenguard Environmental Institute is an industry-independent organization that aims to protect human health and improve quality of life by enhancing indoor air quality and reducing people’s exposure to chemicals and other pollutants. As an ISO-IEC Guide 65:1996 accredited, third-party certifying body, the Greenguard Environmental Institute certifies products and materials for low chemical emissions and serves as a public resource for choosing healthier products and materials for indoor environments. In 2011, UL Environment, a business unit of UL acquired Greenguard Environmental Institute.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are organic compounds that have a high vapor pressure at room temperature. High vapor pressure correlates with a low boiling point, which relates to the number of the sample's molecules in the surrounding air, a trait known as volatility.
An air purifier or air cleaner is a device which removes contaminants from the air in a room to improve indoor air quality. These devices are commonly marketed as being beneficial to allergy sufferers and asthmatics, and at reducing or eliminating second-hand tobacco smoke.
Green building refers to both a structure and the application of processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from planning to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and demolition. This requires close cooperation of the contractor, the architects, the engineers, and the client at all project stages. The Green Building practice expands and complements the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort. Green building also refers to saving resources to the maximum extent, including energy saving, land saving, water saving, material saving, etc., during the whole life cycle of the building, protecting the environment and reducing pollution, providing people with healthy, comfortable and efficient use of space, and being in harmony with nature. Buildings that live in harmony; green building technology focuses on low consumption, high efficiency, economy, environmental protection, integration and optimization.’
A gas stove is a stove that is fuelled by combustible gas such as natural gas, propane, butane, liquefied petroleum gas, syngas, or other flammable gas. Before the advent of gas, cooking stoves relied on solid fuels such as coal or wood. The first gas stoves were developed in the 1820s and a gas stove factory was established in England in 1836. This new cooking technology had the advantage of being easily adjustable and could be turned off when not in use. The gas stove, however, did not become a commercial success until the 1880s, by which time supplies of piped gas were available in cities and large towns in Britain. The stoves became widespread on the European Continent and in the United States in the early 20th century.
Building science is the science and technology-driven collection of knowledge in order to provide better indoor environmental quality (IEQ), energy-efficient built environments, and occupant comfort and satisfaction. Building physics, architectural science, and applied physics are terms used for the knowledge domain that overlaps with building science. In building science, the methods used in natural and hard sciences are widely applied, which may include controlled and quasi-experiments, randomized control, physical measurements, remote sensing, and simulations. On the other hand, methods from social and soft sciences, such as case study, interviews & focus group, observational method, surveys, and experience sampling, are also widely used in building science to understand occupant satisfaction, comfort, and experiences by acquiring qualitative data. One of the recent trends in building science is a combination of the two different methods. For instance, it is widely known that occupants' thermal sensation and comfort may vary depending on their sex, age, emotion, experiences, etc. even in the same indoor environment. Despite the advancement in data extraction and collection technology in building science, objective measurements alone can hardly represent occupants' state of mind such as comfort and preference. Therefore, researchers are trying to measure both physical contexts and understand human responses to figure out complex interrelationships.
A building envelope or building enclosure is the physical separator between the conditioned and unconditioned environment of a building, including the resistance to air, water, heat, light, and noise transfer.
Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances called pollutants in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. It is also the contamination of the indoor or outdoor environment either by chemical, physical, or biological agents that alters the natural features of the atmosphere. There are many different types of air pollutants, such as gases, particulates and biological molecules. Air pollution can cause diseases, allergies, and even death to humans; it can also cause harm to other living organisms such as animals and crops, and may damage the natural environment or built environment. Air pollution can be caused by both human activities and natural phenomena.
Sir Andrew Paul Haines, FMedSci is a British epidemiologist and academic. He was the Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine from 2001 to 2010.
Sustainable refurbishment describes working on existing buildings to improve their environmental performance using sustainable methods and materials. A refurbishment or retrofit is defined as: "any work to a building over and above maintenance to change its capacity, function or performance' in other words, any intervention to adjust, reuse, or upgrade a building to suit new conditions or requirements". Refurbishment can be done to a part of a building, an entire building, or a campus. Sustainable refurbishment takes this a step further to modify the existing building to perform better in terms of its environmental impact and its occupants' environment.
The effects of climate change on human health are increasingly well studied and quantified. Rising temperatures and changes in weather patterns are increasing the severity of heat waves, extreme weather and other causes of illness, injury or death. Heat waves and extreme weather events have a big impact on health both directly and indirectly. When people are exposed to higher temperatures for longer time periods they might experience heat illness and heat-related death.
Planetary health is a multi- and transdisciplinary research paradigm, a new science for exceptional action, and a global movement. Planetary health refers to "the health of human civilization and the state of the natural systems on which it depends". In 2015, the Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on Planetary Health launched the concept which is currently being developed towards a new health science with over 25 areas of expertise.
Healthy building refers to an emerging area of interest that supports the physical, psychological, and social health and well-being of people in buildings and the built environment. Buildings can be key promoters of health and well-being since most people spend a majority of their time indoors. According to the National Human Activity Pattern Survey, Americans spend "an average of 87% of their time in enclosed buildings and about 6% of their time in enclosed vehicles."
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on the environment, with changes in human activity leading to temporary changes in air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and water quality. As the pandemic became a global health crisis in early 2020, various national responses including lockdowns and travel restrictions caused substantial disruption to society, travel, energy usage and economic activity, sometimes referred to as the "anthropause". As public health measures were lifted later in the pandemic, its impact has sometimes been discussed in terms of effects on implementing renewable energy transition and climate change mitigation.
Lidia Morawska is a Polish–Australian physicist and distinguished professor at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, at the Queensland University of Technology and director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health (ILAQH) at QUT. She is also co-director of the Australia-China Centre for Air Quality Science and Management, an adjunct professor at the Jinan University in China, and a Vice-Chancellor fellow at the Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), University of Surrey in the United Kingdom. Her work focuses on fundamental and applied research in the interdisciplinary field of air quality and its impact on human health, with a specific focus on atmospheric fine, ultrafine and nanoparticles. Since 2003, she expanded her interests to include also particles from human respiration activities and airborne infection transmission.
Dusan Licina is an engineer and researcher specializing in indoor air quality, building ventilation, and human exposure. He is a professor at EPFL and head of the Human-Oriented Built Environment Laboratory.
References
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- ↑ Sachs, Jeffrey D.; Karim, Salim S. Abdool; Aknin, Lara; Allen, Joseph; Brosbøl, Kirsten; Colombo, Francesca; Barron, Gabriela Cuevas; Espinosa, María Fernanda; Gaspar, Vitor; Gaviria, Alejandro; Haines, Andy; Hotez, Peter J.; Koundouri, Phoebe; Bascuñán, Felipe Larraín; Lee, Jong-Koo (2022-10-08). "The Lancet Commission on lessons for the future from the COVID-19 pandemic". The Lancet. 400 (10359): 1224–1280. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(22)01585-9. ISSN 0140-6736. PMC 9539542 . PMID 36115368.
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- ↑ Carmichael, Sarah Green (February 28, 2021). "The Big Question: Can We Go Back to Our Offices?". Bloomberg . Retrieved 2021-08-11.
- 1 2 "Joseph Allen". Lancet Commission on COVID-19. The Lancet . Retrieved 2021-08-11.
- ↑ P, MacNaughton; X, Cao; J, Buonocore; J, Cedeno-Laurent; J, Spengler; A, Bernstein; J, Allen (June 2018). "Energy savings, emission reductions, and health co-benefits of the green building movement". Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology. 28 (4): 307–318. doi:10.1038/s41370-017-0014-9. ISSN 1559-064X. PMID 29382929. S2CID 208354309.
- ↑ Salimifard, Parichehr; Buonocore, Jonathan J.; Konschnik, Kate; Azimi, Parham; VanRy, Marissa; Cedeno Laurent, Jose Guillermo; Hernández, Diana; Allen, Joseph G. (2022-01-01). "Climate policy impacts on building energy use, emissions, and health: New York City local law 97". Energy. 238: 121879. doi: 10.1016/j.energy.2021.121879 . ISSN 0360-5442. S2CID 239660942.
- ↑ Allen, Joseph G. (2023-01-09). "Designing Buildings that Are Both Well-Ventilated and Green". Harvard Business Review. ISSN 0017-8012 . Retrieved 2023-02-03.
- ↑ "9 Foundations of a Healthy Building". 9 Foundations. Retrieved 2023-05-17.
- ↑ White House Summit on Indoor Air Quality , retrieved 2023-05-17
- ↑ Allen, Joseph G. (2023-11-09). "It's Time for Companies to Monitor Workplace Air Quality". Harvard Business Review. ISSN 0017-8012 . Retrieved 2024-02-18.