Indoor Environmental Quality Essay

Task 1 There are many factors you should take into account when planning healthy and safe indoor and outdoor environments. Look at the pictures below, and then complete the boxes in the grid to explain how you might need to adapt them in order to take the list of factors into account.

There is much mystification over the description of a sick building. Many employers investigate and seek information by asking questions like, “What, How and why is my building sick?” Within that, lies much of the scepticism. Buildings don’t get ill, persons do!

A Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology document published in 2011, found that the effects of poor housing conditions are costing the NHS around £600 million per year. The document acknowledged some of the housing related hazards that are contributing to poor health, which included mould, damp and excess cold. Poor layout and structural defects were also identified as being a problem, as they can increase the risk of accidents (parliament.uk, 2011).

Interior design and architecture are essential, and often overlooked, aspects of everyday life. In modern society people rely on function, durability, and visual appeal when selecting designs for their homes, businesses, and places of leisure. The way that a space is designed influences such things as mood, which, in the case of a business, can impact the productivity of employees and either draw or repel customers. In residential design, the design becomes very personal and, to be considered a successful design, must properly reflect the home owner while at the same time offering some practicality that makes the space livable. An effective design, for any space, must solve some problem, be it function, flexibility, or some other criteria. Simply solving a problem would not please the customer, however, unless it offered some visual appeal. Creating function with style is the real job of any interior designer, and is essential in a content society.

The development of the Therapeutic Environment Screening Survey (TESS), include items that cover specific domains such as exit control, maintenance, cleanliness, safety, orientation, privacy, unit autonomy, outdoor access, lighting, noise, visual stimulation, space/seating, and familiarity/home likeness. Another recent development is the Environmental Audit Tool (EAT), which groups items by the following 10 principles: The environment should: be safe and secure, small, simple with good visual access, rid of unnecessary stimulation, highlighting helpful stimuli, prepared for wandering patients, familiar, designed to encourage communication and community, and domestic in nature providing opportunities for engagement in the ordinary tasks of daily living (Fleming, 2011). The study conducted by Richard Fleming, he showed that these environment assessment tools provide accurate measurements in regards to the quality of the environment and informs facilities of their environmental

The first section of my report touches two case study buildings that considers such matters in an intimate way, the Dalby Forest Visitor Centre in Yorkshire, and the Heels Building, National Trust Headquarters, located in Swindon. The second section of the report focuses on a personal statement, giving my opinions on both buildings environmental sustainability and overall impact.

Being environmentally friendly isn’t merely a trend. After thousands of years of using the earth’s resources, we have finally come to realize that we are destroying this beautiful gift we were honored with. Architects play an influential role in trying to preserve this gift by encouraging a multitude of strategies that can be more cost efficient in the long run, be more comfortable for its users, and most importantly, have a lower carbon footprint. Strategies can include drastic changes to heat and air systems, construction material selections, or even specific design details to the architecture of a building that would reduce the amount of energy it consumes.

Interior design is a profession that is undertaken academically just like other professional careers. It mainly involves the development and imparting of skills, knowledge and attitudes that pertains the activities undertaken in the building and construction industry. The profession of interior designing goes beyond designing how a structure will look because it incorporates environmental issues especially aesthetic value of the structure to be constructed, the ergonomics, local fire codes and besides studying fundamental design issues and practice in the building and construction industry (Guerin & Thompson, 2014). Even though the profession is not as old as some of the established professions, the fact remains that the fundamentals of design

I had the opportunity to assess the needs of the Rosewood and Rockwood plaza in collaboration with OHSU, Human Solutions and Wallace medical Concern. I am following up with a recommendation that Human Solutions consider implementing a roof top community space and garden on the Rockwood plaza building. This recommendation is evidenced by a variety of studies, government reports, and models that show how community space and the built environment contribute to the physical, mental, and social well-being of individuals and communities (design for health.net). These individual and community health benefits can also contribute to the health of the broader community and have a positive influence on the environment. The integration of the built environment to promote health outcomes has been shown to have significant impact on both the individual

Scenario: A property developer is converting an old railway station into retail and office accommodation. The client is keen to make the working environment for the staff as comfortable as possible. As a consultant, explain how this can be done by addressing the relevant grading criteria.

World Health Organization (WHO) defined the definition of “Health” in 1948 (World Health Organization (WHO), 1948) that: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” In healthcare facilities, the goal of the healing and healthy environment is to offer comfortable surroundings and calmness for patients, staff, and guests. Daylight is one of the most efficient way to create these environments (Edwards & Torcellini, 2002). Additionally, Daylight and view through windows in buildings are recognized as an important factor in rising the Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) (Choi, 2005; Prakash,

LEED, also known as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, “is a rating system devised by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) to evaluate the environmental performance of a building and encourage market transformation towards sustainable design”. The building has a LEED-EB Certification. People installed high-efficiency lighting systems. The purpose was to improve its controls to reduce the building’s energy consumption. Overall the building uses less water and energy which helps them save money.

Within the Anthropocene, buildings and other structures should be considered as more than just sustainable entities as they are able to communicate the important network shared between users and

Green buildings could become one of the main factors to preserve our rapidly decaying environment. There is no easy way to define a green building, but a green building is essentially a structure that amplifies the positives and mitigates the negatives throughout the entire life cycle of the building (Kriss, 2014). There are many definitions for a green building, but all of them include the planning, designing, constructing, and operating of the building while taking into huge considerations of the energy use, water use, indoor air environment, materials used and the effect it has on the site the green building is being built on. The first green buildings dates back to as far as the 1970’s, when solar panels went from experiments to reality. Green buildings were not as popular as they are today due to their extremely high pricing. With technology rapidly growing, solar panels are becoming cheaper and cheaper, making the transition to creating green buildings more affordable. This is the primary reason for the increased growth of green buildings today. A modern company that is paving the way to the growth of green buildings named LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, focuses primarily on new and effective ideas for environmentally friendly buildings projects. With more than 60,000 commercial projects worldwide and 1.7 million square feet being certified every day, LEED is one of the leading groups for promoting green buildings. LEED has popularized the entire

The issues to resolve and is shaping residential buildings, which is affected by many factors related to climatic, socio-demographic, urban and other objective and subjective.