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A. Mahdavi, C. Berger, B. Veselina, L. Bourikas, R.T. Hellwig, Q. Jin, A.L. Pisello, M. Schweiker:
"Necessary Conditions for Multi-Domain Indoor Environmental Quality Standards";
Sustainability, 8439 (2020), 12; 24 pages.

A discussion of sustainability in architecture cannot be meaningfully carried out without
the inclusion of most buildings´ central purpose, namely the provision of indoor environments
that are accommodating of occupants´ needs and requirements. To this end, building designers
and operators are expected to demonstrate compliance with codes and standards pertaining to
indoor environmental quality (IEQ). However, the majority of conventional IEQ standards, codes,
and guidelines have a single-domain character, in that they address IEQ in terms of a number of
isolated domains (i.e., thermal, visual, acoustic, air quality). In this context, the present contribution
explores the current state of multi-domain IEQ evaluation approaches and the necessary conditions
for their further development and application. Toward this end, a number of common building rating
schemes were selected and analyzed in detail. The results of this assessment imply the necessity of
both short-term improvements of the existing schemes in terms of the transparency and plausibility
of the applied point allocation and weighting strategies and the fundamental need for a deeper
empirically grounded understanding of the nature of occupants´ perception of and behavior in the
built environments.

no german abstract
A discussion of sustainability in architecture cannot be meaningfully carried out without
the inclusion of most buildings´ central purpose, namely the provision of indoor environments
that are accommodating of occupants´ needs and requirements. To this end, building designers
and operators are expected to demonstrate compliance with codes and standards pertaining to
indoor environmental quality (IEQ). However, the majority of conventional IEQ standards, codes,
and guidelines have a single-domain character, in that they address IEQ in terms of a number of
isolated domains (i.e., thermal, visual, acoustic, air quality). In this context, the present contribution
explores the current state of multi-domain IEQ evaluation approaches and the necessary conditions
for their further development and application. Toward this end, a number of common building rating
schemes were selected and analyzed in detail. The results of this assessment imply the necessity of
both short-term improvements of the existing schemes in terms of the transparency and plausibility
of the applied point allocation and weighting strategies and the fundamental need for a deeper
empirically grounded understanding of the nature of occupants´ perception of and behavior in the
built environments.

indoor environmental quality; codes; standards; multi-domain; human factor; architecture; building; sustainability rating

http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su12208439