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03 Indoor Climate 03 Indoor Climate Introduction It is the atmosphere of a living space. It captures and displays the essence of a home. It fills the outer form with life. It creates harmony (or disharmony), which affects the entire human condition – mind, soul, and body. Figure: The hearth as the center of warmth. Healthy indoor climate due to a radiant heating system and natural building materials such as wood and clay. Photo: Dirk Dittmar, Building Biology Consulting Office IBN The selection of building materials and the type of construction influence the quality of the indoor climate, which very much defines both the quality of living in a given building as well as its biological effect. We should always keep this in mind with almost any building project, be it small or big. The following discussion not only applies to residential buildings but also to schools, hospitals, nursing homes, and especially to the large number of office spaces and workshops. Today there is so much talk about a positive work "climate" and a people-friendly work environment that the health and human factor aspects of indoor climate are often overlooked. Even in places where performance is a priority such as educational institutions and workplaces, a healthy indoor climate is just as important as organization, efficiency, and optimum indoor furnishings and technologies. In addition to the quantitative performance, an appropriate indoor climate promotes human health (low sick leave rates, reaching old age), contentment, well-being, and generally a positive work or 1 learning environment. And as has been repeatedly demonstrated, it also has a positive impact on work performance. The connection between human health and the built environment has now been recognized the world over. The term "sick building syndrome" (SBS) has been established. It basically refers to those factors of a building that may cause illness in occupants even though the symptoms cannot be traced to specific pollutants or sources within the building. In contrast, the term "building-related illness" (BRI) is used when symptoms of a diagnosable illness are identified and can be attributed directly to airborne building contaminants. How important the impact of microclimate factors is has now also been recognized by the legislators; among others, this is documented in the minimum safety and health requirements of the Council Directive of the European Communities as well as the German Workplace Ordinance of the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. Climate factors Definitions • Climate: The sum total of all meteorological variables for a given region within a larger time frame. The determining factors of these "weather conditions" include: incoming solar radiation, solar radiation reflected back from the Earth, water vapor content of the air, wind, air pressure, dust and CO2 level of the air. • Air conditioning: A process in which the air temperature, supply air, and air humidity are monitored and controlled by air-conditioning equipment. • Bioclimatology: A branch of knowledge concerned with the impact of climate on biological systems (in this context, especially on human beings). • Bioclimatology or how to create a healthy indoor climate is one of the most difficult branches of science because it is extremely complex. Those who are responsible for the indoor climate quality such as architects, building services engineers, energy advisors, and construction companies must, therefore, have a vast knowledge in this field. The factors that affect indoor climate are shown in the Figure below. Air, temperature, humidity, and electroclimate with their many variables mutually influence each other to a lesser or greater degree, which, in turn, are shaped by the building materials, the construction type, installations, furnishings, and the type of neighborhood. By applying the existing knowledge of building-related climate factors, it is possible to create a comfortable and healthy indoor climate. 2 The climate inside buildings is also heavily influenced from the outside. The climate on Earth has been the foundation of the development and maintenance of living beings (plants, animals, humans) for billions of years. Solar radiation or sunlight play a particularly important role (see also course module "Light and Lighting"): All life processes, especially photosynthesis and molecular motions, depend on it—but also diseases. The natural balance of our climate is often—independent of global warming—seriously disturbed. The level of air pollution in urban centers, traffic corridors, and industrial areas is higher than in rural areas: less natural daylight and cosmic radiation exposure, less oxygen-rich and ion-rich fresh air, rather low air humidity but quite high air temperatures ("urban stone desert). The CO2 level is also above the normal threshold value. And last but not least, the constant exposure to the various forms of electromagnetic pollution is very alarming. 3 Bioclimate and health Which positive and which negative effects the bioclimate can have on human health are listed in the table below: Bioclimate describes the physical and mental influences that are caused by climate factors, which act either singly or in combination. How strongly humans, as well as animals and plants, are affected by a given climate depends on their state of health. According to experiments carried out by Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, healthy plants would die only at temperatures around 60 degrees Celsius (140°F), whereas less robust plants from a greenhouse would already die at temperatures around 30 degrees Celsius (86°F). With regard to bioclimatology and a healthy indoor climate, this finding should also be very important. On the one hand, the human body must constantly defend itself against climate and other stressors and suffers, therefore, from stress symptoms. Sooner or later this may lead to the development of chronic diseases. On the other hand, climate has the potential to contribute to everything that allows people to be happy and content: well- being and health, harmony and joy of living. Unfortunately, the negative effects of climate factors are more prevalent today. It is rare to find a home with a healthy indoor climate. As with so many other areas of building, the fundamental laws of nature and biological considerations have been seriously neglected in this regard. 4 About the development of buildings In the animal kingdom, we can find examples of simple ways to build. Here we can study how climate factors are the driving force behind the building of nests, caves, dwellings, etc. Animals, for example, pick materials with a high insulation value that are porous and loosely packed. They also make use of the great insulating quality of still air. Animals can find the required building materials in their immediate natural environment such as twigs, wood, clay, hay, leaves, feathers, and wool. The various layers are arranged in such a manner that the insulation increases from the outside toward the inside. The nests of blackbirds and swallows, the tree hallows of woodpeckers, or the burrows of hamsters are all great examples. Even such ground breeders as the pewits use the insulating quality of twigs and rocks—in the case of sandpipers seashells—which they arrange so expertly that the still air pockets found in-between those layers can protect their fragile eggs and young birds from the moist, cold underground. Ancient dwellings of human origin are rather similar to those of animals. Even today there are still regions where huts, tree houses, caves, yurts, and tents are built from wood, bamboo, clay, rocks, reed, straw, millet straw, leaves, cotton, wool, or bark. Figure: Building with bamboo in Indonesia Locally available building materials, the prevalent climate conditions, and the types of construction are closely related to each other. Simplicity and functionality are the hallmarks of such dwellings. 5 Even in steppes and desert zones that face extreme changes in daily weather conditions, these dwellings have been serving the needs of the local people for thousands of years. Moreover, this type of weather protection is completely free of charge; it only requires the labor of the homeowner and maybe that of his or her neighbor. And also in more sophisticated buildings with added structural strength and home decor, time-tested and locally available building materials are used, following traditional building methods. Stone and brick structures, primarily air-dried clay bricks, played a greater role in the development of cities in warmer regions such as Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Iraq; the scarcity of wood due to forest clearing had promoted this way of building. In Europe, about 60-70% mineral-based building materials (bricks, clay, lime, etc.) and about 30-40% plant-based building materials (wood, cork, straw, reed) were used until the beginning, and in some regions until the middle, of the 20th century. In only a very short time, this ratio has radically changed. Today, only 10-20% mineral-based and 1- 5% plant-based building materials are used; the large majority of the remaining 80-90% of the building materials consists of highly processed and synthetic materials (concrete, steel, glass, plastics, etc.). This is especially true for a large portion of new construction. This change—also in combination with modern heating systems and electrical wiring systems—has led to a myriad of unsolved problems, especially with regard to indoor climate. Climate considerations for livestock barns Prof. Hinrich Bielenberg
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