Despite everything we know about the effects of the indoor environment on the users of buildings, we continue to build homes and offices that are harmful to our health. It is high time for an integrated approach and a curriculum that pays more attention to the problem, says Philomena Bluyssen.

Students and researchers at TU Delft will soon be serving as guinea pigs in her research. To this end, she is planning to build a ‘SenseLab’, in which it will be possible to imitate the conditions that affect the indoor environment. “This will allow them to use their own senses to experience what it’s like to work under a particular type of lighting, continuous noise or drafts from cracks and holes”, explains Bluyssen. This is not to say that the people who use the faculty of Architecture are unfamiliar with these conditions. In its current state, according to Bluyssen, the faculty’s building is a perfect example of what not to do: single-pane glass, no ventilation, draughty, poorly insulated and bad acoustics.

For centuries, architects, engineers and scientists have been working to optimise individual components of the indoor environment (e.g. thermal comfort or air quality). Even in the first century BC, Vitruvius was writing about the importance of indoor air quality. According to Bluyssen, however, the indoor environment is more than just air quality, and it is also more than the sum of its parts. “The insights generated in recent years show that the assessment of the indoor environment should be based on human values, and not on a handful of guide values.”

Even in a SenseLab, we can experience how the consequences of a poor indoor environment could help architects to understand their responsibilities better, proposes Bluyssen. “Far too few buildings are designed with the idea that they are intended for people. The point is that people should be able to use them in a healthy and comfortable way. Every engineering student ought to learn this.”

This was her primary reason for transferring to TU Delft after nearly 22 years of research work at TNO. With her chair, she hopes to realise additions to the curriculum. They will be intended to ensure that, as part of their training, architects learn to design in teams, based on integrated expertise. This is urgently needed, because the increasing interest that the WHO and the Health Council of the Netherlands are taking in the indoor environment could be expected to lead to changes in requirements. 

Obesity

A poor indoor environment can cause many diseases and disorders. Around 1900, new discoveries in the sciences made a number of improvement in various aspects of the indoor environment possible. Nevertheless, artificial lighting, heating, cooling and other technologies were accompanied by ‘new’ problems related to health and comfort. Legionnaires’ disease is one example. Later, with the introduction of new building materials, the first problems with formaldehyde began to arise. In the 1980s, we became aware of ‘sick building syndrome’: poor air quality in offices is shown to have a negative effect on the performance of employees.

Recent research indicates that other diseases might be related to the indoor environment as well. Examples range from stress-initiated complaints to COPD (chronic bronchitis and emphysema) and lung cancer. Plastic in buildings contains plasticisers, which can lead to hormonal imbalance. Even obesity might be associated with poor indoor conditions. Chronic stress caused by low-frequency noise during sleep can cause people to develop long-term health problems without them being aware of it.

In short, light, noise and air quality and thermal comfort help to determine whether people feel healthy and comfortable in a building. “The only problem is that we currently approach all of these individual factors primarily from different specialisations, and we don’t even do that until the damage has already been done. We are putting out fires at the component level”, argues Bluyssen. “My research focuses on developing an integrated method. To this end, we look at the buildings, as well as the behaviour and needs of the people who are in them.” The research is expected to result in a ‘scenario-oriented risk assessment’ of the built environment, with a human focus.

Published: May 2013