Indoor Environments最新文献

{"title":"Beyond the metrics: The discrepancy between indoor air quality benchmarks, outdoor access, and occupant satisfaction in U.S. office buildings","authors":"Elizabeth L. McCormick ,&nbsp;Traci R. Rider ,&nbsp;Jianxin Hu","doi":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100133","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100133","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Well-filtered air, biophilic design, and outdoor terraces are increasingly provided as workplace amenities intended to foster a connection to nature within the confines of urban infrastructure. Yet this mixed-methods study of four urban office spaces in the US Southeast and mid-Atlantic (Atlanta, Charlotte, Durham, and Washington, DC) reveals a persistent disconnect between design strategies and occupant experiences. Despite meeting or exceeding industry standards for ventilation, daylight, greenery, and access to outdoor space, study participants frequently expressed feeling “trapped,” “confined,” or “stuck in a cold box” during the workday, highlighting the gap between technical compliance and sensory satisfaction. Continuous air quality monitoring confirmed that average IAQ index values ranged from 34 to 50, CO₂ levels averaged 454–557 ppm, and PM₂.₅ concentrations rarely exceeded 15 μg/m³ . Nevertheless, behavioral and perceptual data from surveys, interviews, and QR-based tracking revealed limited terrace use and a persistent desire for “fresh air,” environmental variability, and sensory richness. When terraces were used, they functioned primarily as recreational or social spaces rather than work environments, constrained by glare, noise, poor ergonomics, and a lack of supportive infrastructure. These findings demonstrate that technical benchmarks, while necessary, are insufficient to ensure well-being. Instead, more effective workplace strategies must therefore move beyond narrowly defined performance metrics to embrace environmental diversity, occupant perception, and cultivate more porous boundaries between the indoors and nature.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100665,"journal":{"name":"Indoor Environments","volume":"2 4","pages":"Article 100133"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145363989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Semi-outdoor workspace in the tropics: Exploring thermal comfort through field measurements and surveys","authors":"Toby Cheung ,&nbsp;Kuniaki Mihara ,&nbsp;Takamasa Hasama","doi":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100136","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100136","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study explores the viability of a semi-outdoor workspace in Singapore designed to promote natural ventilation as a sustainable alternative to traditional air-conditioned offices. Continuous physical measurements and voluntary occupant surveys were conducted over two months during the hottest season in Singapore to assess thermal comfort performance across different environmental settings under living workplace. Under natural ventilation, despite indoor temperatures averaging 30.4 °C and relative humidity around 70 %, occupant comfort was largely maintained through elevated air speeds up to 1.0 m/s generated by ceiling fans. At high fan speed settings, occupant thermal satisfaction reached 68 % while observed only 11 % dissatisfaction rate, effectively minimizing discomfort related to excessive warmth sensation, insufficient airflow, and limited control of the environment. Compared to air-conditioning at a 28.0 °C setpoint with medium fan speed, which recorded the highest satisfaction among the air-conditioned settings, natural ventilation achieved comparable thermal satisfaction while reducing cooling energy consumption by approximately seven times. Additional energy use was recorded at 26.0 °C with fans settings, where two-fifth of occupants preferred a warmer environment, indicating potential overcooling even in tropical climates. Standard Effective Temperature (SET) analysis further identified an optimal comfort zone between 25.0 °C and 28.0 °C, supporting at least 80 % thermal acceptability across a range of environmental conditions. This longitudinal field study in living testbed provides strong evidence that well-designed semi-outdoor workspaces can achieve high occupant satisfaction and substantial energy savings, offering a promising direction for more sustainable and resilient workplace designs in the tropics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100665,"journal":{"name":"Indoor Environments","volume":"2 4","pages":"Article 100136"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145571366","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comparison of two methods for evaluating the performance of particle filtration systems in underground railway stations","authors":"Valisoa M. Rakotonirinjanahary ,&nbsp;Suzanne Crumeyrolle ,&nbsp;Mateusz Bogdan ,&nbsp;Benjamin Hanoune","doi":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100144","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100144","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Filtration is one of the strategies that can be implemented to mitigate the public health challenge due to elevated concentrations of particles in underground railway stations (URS). During a particle (PM_2.5 and PM₁₀) monitoring campaign performed in a Paris URS over more than 5 years, two filtration systems were tested. One of these systems employs positive ionization (Experiment 1), the second one is based on water filtration (Experiment 2). The present study focuses on evaluating the performance of these experiments, using two distinct methods: the daily amplitude coefficient (DAC), and a generalized additive model (GAM). The DAC method requires only particulate matter measurements, while the GAM method necessitates additional measurements (indoor CO₂ concentration, temperature and humidity, outdoor pollutant concentration) as it analyses the nonlinear relationships between all these factors. The results show that both filtration technologies are more effective at reducing PM_2.5 concentrations than PM₁₀, but Experiment 2 was less efficient than Experiment 1. Specifically, DAC analysis leads to a reduction of 17.8 ± 3.2 % for PM₁₀ and 25.9 ± 6.6 % for PM_2.5 for Experiment 1, compared to only 0.4 ± 0.1 % for PM₁₀ and 3.7 ± 1.0 % for PM_2.5 for Experiment 2. GAM analysis gives similar results, with a reduction of 13.1 ± 0.8 % for PM₁₀ and 26.0 ± 0.8 % for PM_2.5 for Experiment 1, and for Experiment 2 a reduction of 1.3 ± 2.0 % for PM₁₀ and 4.6 ± 1.3 % for PM_2.5. Yet, because of differences in the filtration setups, such as the position of the modules and the maximal air flow capacity, and of unspecified internal characteristics of the systems, no conclusion can be drawn as to whether one of the filtration techniques is more efficient than the other. The two analysis methodologies lead to similar results and allow to fully and rigorously exploit long time series. The DAC method can be applied using only PM measurements, while the GAM method requires additional measurements, but at the same time provides valuable insights about the effects of each parameter considered.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100665,"journal":{"name":"Indoor Environments","volume":"2 4","pages":"Article 100144"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145736267","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessing the accuracy of predicted values of human CO2 generation rates for IAQ applications","authors":"Oluwatobi Oke ,&nbsp;Rodrigo Fernández-Verdejo ,&nbsp;Adam Lowe ,&nbsp;Laura Watson ,&nbsp;Shanshan Chen ,&nbsp;Stefan Flagner ,&nbsp;Guy Plaqui ,&nbsp;Andrew Persily","doi":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100132","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100132","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The fields of building ventilation and indoor air quality (IAQ) often use indoor CO₂ concentrations as indicators of ventilation and IAQ, though many of these applications involve technical misinterpretation. Many of these applications require estimates of CO₂ emission rates from building occupants (VCO₂), which can be predicted from body mass, sex, age, and activity level. In many cases, these parameters are difficult to determine, necessitating assumptions about the occupants and their activities. The determination of these values can be particularly challenging during the building design phase when no occupants are present or in occupied spaces where characterizing occupants is often impractical. This study utilizes data from experiments conducted by four research laboratories employing whole-room indirect calorimeter measurements of VCO₂ to evaluate the accuracy of two estimation approaches, ASHRAE and Persily and de Jonge. The experiments involved healthy adults performing various activities, including sleeping, cycling, and sedentary tasks such as reading. This validation exercise of VCO₂ predictions was conducted using two types of input values, measured data from the experiments and data from the literature. The results indicate that the ASHRAE approach consistently underestimated VCO₂, with absolute mean prediction errors ranging from 29 % to 58 %. The Persily and de Jonge approach exhibited lower prediction errors, particularly when measured inputs were used, with absolute mean differences ranging from 6 % to 21 %. These findings highlight the critical importance of accurate input data. When measured inputs are unavailable, literature-derived values should be used with an understanding of their uncertainty.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100665,"journal":{"name":"Indoor Environments","volume":"2 4","pages":"Article 100132"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145417331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A multi-criteria decision analysis for building envelope design: Bridging moisture safety and health risks","authors":"Mohsen Bayat Pour","doi":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100134","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100134","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Developing a robust decision analysis framework for selecting appropriate building envelope assemblies is essential to ensure moisture safety, energy efficiency, and sustainability. Recently, Bayat Pour et al. introduced the inutility decision analysis (IDA) method, which integrates moisture safety criteria with sustainability considerations, including economic and environmental aspects. This study builds upon the IDA framework by addressing a previously identified gap: the lack of occupant health analyses. A new feature is incorporated into the method to assess health impacts, specifically related to mould exposure. Three case studies of timber-framed walls were analysed under Stockholm climate conditions. The probabilistic mould reliability analysis showed that the probability of exceeding the mould index threshold (MI = 3) was 2.3 % for CS1, 0 % for CS2, and 71.5 % for CS3. Health consequence calculations linked mould occurrence to asthma and allergic rhinitis, with potential lifetime costs of 22415 €/m² and 3403 €/m², respectively, under worst-case conditions. The inutility decision analysis further demonstrated the trade-offs between initial and health-related costs: CS1 (SPR = 0.14) combined initial costs (45.27 €/m²) with low health inutility (279.87 €/m²); CS2 (SPR = 0.50) required the highest initial costs (180.84 €/m²) but avoided health costs entirely; CS3 (SPR = 0.59) offered the lowest initial costs (34.05 €/m²) but incurred the largest health inutility (8815.39 €/m²). These findings illustrate how IDA can provide a transparent and balanced decision framework, moving beyond deterministic or initial costs-based assessments to explicitly address occupant health and long-term sustainability in building envelope design.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100665,"journal":{"name":"Indoor Environments","volume":"2 4","pages":"Article 100134"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145417333","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A review on methodological transitions in school lighting research from 1980 to 2020","authors":"Stavroula Angelaki","doi":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100125","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100125","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This literature review aims to identify and discuss research studies exploring lighting in school environments from 1980 to 2020. The article explores how methods and tools, attributed to various research fields, have been used in education-related studies. The review has shown a shift in focus related to light variables studied across the four decades, from daylight to electric lighting. Additionally, the methods used to evaluate and suggest new lighting shifted from participatory approaches to software simulations, resulting in a primarily mixed-method approach during the last decade (2010–2020). Lighting evaluations are at the forefront of research projects, followed by retrofit solutions and new design implementations. This approach reveals a gap in design processes to implement new lighting. The article discusses the importance of an interdisciplinary and mixed-method approach when working with educational environments, underlining lighting characteristics that require further study, and the importance of learning activities in connection to lighting.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100665,"journal":{"name":"Indoor Environments","volume":"2 4","pages":"Article 100125"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145268673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An analysis of the impact of geology on indoor air radon concentration","authors":"Uttam Saha ,&nbsp;Derek Cooper ,&nbsp;Pamela R. Turner ,&nbsp;Rebecca A. Cantrell ,&nbsp;Kushajveer Singh","doi":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100143","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100143","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Radon (²²²Rn₈₆), a radioactive gas formed by the decay of uranium and radium in rocks and minerals, can seep into houses, accumulating in the indoor air. Breathing radon-rich indoor air is the leading cause of lung cancer, after smoking, resulting in around 21,000 deaths in the US each year. The US Surgeon General advises taking action at 4 pCi/L or higher. Approximately 1 in 15 homes could have an indoor air radon concentration at or above 4 pCi/L. In this study, 134,496 indoor air radon test results from the state of Georgia, USA were analyzed. The tests were conducted between 1990 and 2022. The test results were analyzed in relation to the five well-recognized physiographic provinces in the state with contrasting underground geological features. Significantly different mean/median/mode and spread of radon concentration, frequency of high radon, and potential lung cancer risk were evident for different physiographic provinces. The highest indoor air radon levels and the highest lung cancer risk in Georgia were associated with the underground metamorphic rocks Gneiss-Schist-Quartzite, followed by Granite, Limestone-Dolomite-Shale, and Limestone-Sandstone-Shale. The lowest radon and lung cancer risks were associated with the unconsolidated marine sediments, but the risk was still significant. These findings help to substantiate the need for supporting policies and education related to increasing radon testing, mitigation, and regulations, especially in states with similar geological features. Population density, diversity, rurality, and health-literacy in various physiographic provinces should be considered together with these findings to properly realize the risk of radon from a public health standpoint.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100665,"journal":{"name":"Indoor Environments","volume":"2 4","pages":"Article 100143"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145736266","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sensing a coughing person using a depth camera and microphones for effective infection control in indoor environments","authors":"Can Xiao ,&nbsp;Chun Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100135","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100135","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Airborne infectious diseases have been a threat to human health for decades. Among various infection control methods, source control is the most direct and effective. To implement source control measures, it is crucial to accurately identify the index persons and their locations in the indoor environment. Coughing is one of the indicators that a person may have acquired a respiratory infection, although healthy persons may also cough. Therefore, this study developed a method based on depth camera and microphone sensors to detect cough events and identify the location of the corresponding coughing person. The depth camera was employed to achieve human recognition and obtain the coordinates of persons in the indoor environment. Microphone sensors were used to collect audio samples, enabling the detection of cough events and the identification of the location where the cough occurs based on machine learning. Experiments were conducted to validate the proposed method. The results show that the proposed method successfully identified all cough events and accurately localized the coughing person with an error of 604 mm or less. Finally, the proposed method was applied in the source control of person-to-person particle transport in a laboratory indoor environment with a robot equipped with an air cleaner to demonstrate the value of this method for infection control. The results show that, compared with the air cleaner off and the stationary air cleaner on cases, the air-cleaning robot with the proposed coughing person identification and localization method reduced the receptors’ exposure to exhaled particles by up to 75.8 %.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100665,"journal":{"name":"Indoor Environments","volume":"2 4","pages":"Article 100135"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145519802","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Modeling VOC-emissions in a building using Laplace networks – simplified models, explicit expressions and typical timescales","authors":"Fredrik Domhagen,&nbsp;Carl-Eric Hagentoft","doi":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100130","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100130","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>New buildings often initially have elevated levels of VOC emissions that negatively affect the perceived indoor air quality. Increased ventilation is therefore commonly used in new buildings to reduce VOC concentrations and speed up the depletion of VOC within the materials. In this work we present a new analytic method, using Laplace networks, for precise prediction and analysis of VOC emissions in new buildings. The method handles multiple materials and is flexible and easily extendable to more complex cases. The method is validated with numerical simulations and used to analyze a room specific time-constant for assessing early-stage emissions. Results show that the time-constant, together with a general eerfc-function, is useful for relating material properties, emitting area and ventilation rates to time. The proposed method is also used to derive several simplified models that predict emissions and concentrations at various stages, giving new insights into the impact from input parameters and relevant timescales. Given its high computational speed, the method is also proven to be suitable for uncertainty analysis when input data is limited.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100665,"journal":{"name":"Indoor Environments","volume":"2 4","pages":"Article 100130"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145363990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Resident-centric retrofits for social housing: A multi-solving approach","authors":"Marianne F. Touchie","doi":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100131","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.indenv.2025.100131","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Housing around the world needs to be retrofit to achieve our decarbonization goals. Social (or public) housing is a particularly critical sector given that it often serves priority populations who have limited choice in how they are housed. At the same time, social housing in many jurisdictions suffers disproportionately from poor performance that impacts the resident experience including substandard indoor air quality (IAQ), thermal discomfort and broader control issues, often due to underinvestment at the time of construction and throughout the building service life. Further, these performance issues will be exacerbated as our changing climate brings more extreme weather events, including heat waves and wildfires. By focusing retrofit goals entirely on decarbonization, the performance issues impacting residents often remain unaddressed, therefore a framework for considering post-retrofit building performance more holistically is needed. The concept of “multi-solving” retrofits, where multiple performance issues are addressed through a single project, presents a framework through which we can expand our consideration of retrofits beyond energy and carbon. These new directions include reducing life cycle carbon burdens and improving resilience to extreme events; housing affordability; health, comfort and control; and livability and community are described. By applying this framework, retrofit investments can yield benefits for residents that extend beyond initial environmental goals. Following an introduction to the framework and examples of how it can be applied, future directions for the research community, policy makers and industry are suggested to promote widespread adoption of resident-centric retrofits (where resident needs are prioritized) that address the multitude of challenges facing social housing globally. These directions include the need for better data collection on holistic retrofit performance, co-benefit valuation and decision support tools for the building industry.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":100665,"journal":{"name":"Indoor Environments","volume":"2 4","pages":"Article 100131"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145321057","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}