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Buildings
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Indoor Air Quality in Buildings
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Indoor Air Quality in Buildings

A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Building Energy, Physics, Environment, and Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 April 2025 | Viewed by 3410

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Shamila Haddad

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney, Camperdown, Sydney, NSW 2050, Australia
Interests: indoor air and environmental quality; healthy buildings; energy efficiency and ventilation urban heat mitigation strategies; urban microclimate
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Arianna Brambilla

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney, Camperdown, Sydney, NSW 2050, Australia
Interests: human-centered design; building performance assessment; low-carbon living; construction and innovative technologies; healthy-built environments
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Baojie He

grade E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
Interests: urban heat mitigation and adaptation; heat health; heat-resilient infrastructure; urban microclimate; net-zero carbon built environment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is estimated that people spend 80–90% of their time in indoor environments, such as homes, offices and schools. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that almost all of the global population (99%) is exposed to high levels of pollutants. Indoor air quality can be defined as the total attributes of indoor air that affect a person's health and wellbeing, as well as environment. These impacts carry a significant cost burden to the economy and health systems. Indoor exposures to air pollutants have been associated with impaired health and performance in children and adults. Children, older adults, individuals with preexisting conditions and households of low socioeconomic status are often exposed to higher levels of indoor pollutants.

Pollutants being released from indoor sources are being found at high concentrations in the absence of proper ventilation in the building. Pollutants such as fungi, microbial contamination, house dust mites, particulates and air toxics such as formaldehyde can adversely affect indoor air quality. Healthy building environments play an important role in reducing the spread of infectious disease. Climate change can also influence local air quality by increasing the ground-level ozone in many regions, which may present challenges in the future. Global and local overheating also result in more frequent extreme events with high magnitudes such bushfires, which can ultimately affect particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 μm (PM2.5) concentrations and cause adverse health impact for the population exposed to bushfire. Therefore, it becomes increasingly important to understand how indoor air quality (IAQ) impacts lives and how to improve it for cleaner and healthier air. Currently, with the advances of low-cost sensing technologies, the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, artificial intelligence (AI), computational modeling, smart solutions, nature-based solutions and urban heat mitigation and adptation technologies are developed to help tackle the challenge of assessing and improving the IAQ of buildings and homes.

This Special Issue seeks to find high-quality and riginal contributions containing fundamental and applied research, case studies or state of the art that present new insights, innovative approaches, ideas and solutions aiming to assess and solve or mitigate air quality issues in indoor environments. Research topics include, but not limited to:

  • The influence of outdoor air pollution in indoor air quality;
  • Low-cost sensing and IoT technologies to increase indoor air quality monitoring;
  • Impacts of indoor air quality on human health;
  • Indoor air quality modeling;
  • Building retrofitting and smart solutions for improving indoor air quality;
  • Nature-based ideas and solutions to improve indoor air quality;
  • Case studies of indoor air quality monitoring;
  • Performance, simulation and experimental testing of healthy buildings;
  • Indoor/outdoor air quality modeling and AI-driven approaches to assess indoor air quality;
  • Extreme heat events and bushfire, and their impacts on health;
  • Climate change and increase in pollutants, surface-level ozone and tropospheric ozone.

We hope this Special Issue will provide a timely overview of the recent theoretical and technological advances, laboratory and field testing, and design methods.

Dr. Shamila Haddad
Dr. Arianna Brambilla
Prof. Dr. Baojie He
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • indoor air quality
  • net-zero smart buildings
  • energy efficiency measures
  • comfort and productivity
  • building energy retrofiting
  • low-cost sensing and IoT technologies
  • urban overheating
  • extreme heat, bushfires and health

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 241 KiB  
Article
Associations between Predictors of Indoor Air Quality in Kosovo and Health Symptoms in a Large Representative Survey
by Antigona Ukëhaxhaj, Naser Ramadani, Besa Sutaj, Hanns Moshammer, Drita Zogaj, Fatih Sekercioglu and Bujar Rexhepi
Buildings 2024, 14(8), 2579; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14082579 - 22 Aug 2024
Viewed by 807
Abstract
Because most human activities take place inside, indoor air quality is essential to human health. Numerous factors contribute to Kosovo’s air pollution, including traffic, industrial emissions, aging thermal power plants, home heating, and other hazardous pollutants. The National Institute of Public Health and [...] Read more.
Because most human activities take place inside, indoor air quality is essential to human health. Numerous factors contribute to Kosovo’s air pollution, including traffic, industrial emissions, aging thermal power plants, home heating, and other hazardous pollutants. The National Institute of Public Health and the WHO conducted a representative household survey to identify the most exposed and susceptible households, targeting two thousand households. Data from this survey were analyzed regarding the relationship between residential air quality predictors and health symptoms in Kosovo inhabitants. Effects from cooking fuel used on headaches, dizziness, and fatigue were somewhat stronger in females and type of heating seemed a little bit more effective in winter. The latter was also true for respiratory problems and heart disease, lending some credence to the causality of the findings. Thus, cooking devices and energy sources for both heating and cooking seem to have an effect on the health of Kosovars. Although the effect estimates were, in general, moderate with adjusted odds ratios in the magnitude of 2 to 3, they only explained a small part of the variation, with pseudo-R² often only reaching less than 10% and rarely more than 20%. In order to improve indoor air quality, regular monitoring and supervision systems should be established across the nation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Indoor Air Quality in Buildings)

Review

Jump to: Research

17 pages, 355 KiB  
Review
Indoor Volatile Organic Compounds in Prefabricated Timber Buildings—Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainability
by Nigel Goodman, Priyadarsini Rajagopalan, Matthew Francis, Neda Nematollahi, Sotiris Vardoulakis and Anne Steinemann
Buildings 2024, 14(12), 3858; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14123858 (registering DOI) - 30 Nov 2024
Viewed by 388
Abstract
Prefabricated timber buildings offer a low-carbon approach that can help reduce the environmental impact of the building and construction sectors. However, construction materials such as manufactured timber products can emit a range volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are potentially hazardous to human health. [...] Read more.
Prefabricated timber buildings offer a low-carbon approach that can help reduce the environmental impact of the building and construction sectors. However, construction materials such as manufactured timber products can emit a range volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are potentially hazardous to human health. We evaluated 24 years (2000–2024) of peer-reviewed publications of VOCs within prefabricated timber buildings. Studies detected hazardous air pollutants such as formaldehyde, benzene, toluene, and acetaldehyde (indoor concentration ranges of 3.4–94.9 µg/m3, 1.2–19 µg/m3, 0.97–28 µg/m3, and 0.75–352 µg/m3, respectively), with benzene concentrations potentially exceeding World Health Organization indoor air quality guidelines for long/short term exposure. Most studies also detected terpenes (range of 1.8–232 µg/m3). The highest concentrations of formaldehyde and terpenes were in a prefabricated house, and the highest of benzene and toluene were in a prefabricated office building. Paradoxically, the features of prefabricated buildings that make them attractive for sustainability, such as incorporation of manufactured timber products, increased building air tightness, and rapid construction times, make them more prone to indoor air quality problems. Source reduction strategies, such as the use of low-VOC materials and emission barriers, were found to substantially reduce levels of certain indoor pollutants, including formaldehyde. Increasing building ventilation rate during occupancy is also an effective strategy for reducing indoor VOC concentrations, although with the repercussion of increased energy use. Overall, the review revealed a wide range of indoor VOC concentrations, with formaldehyde levels approaching and benzene concentrations potentially exceeding WHO indoor air quality guidelines. The paucity of evidence on indoor air quality in prefabricated timber buildings is notable given the growth in the sector, and points to the need for further evaluation to assess potential health impacts. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Indoor Air Quality in Buildings)
21 pages, 2414 KiB  
Review
Comparative Analysis of Indoor Air Quality and Thermal Comfort Standards in School Buildings across New Zealand with Other OECD Countries
by Vineet Kumar Arya, Eziaku Onyeizu Rasheed, Don Amila Sajeevan Samarasinghe and Suzanne Wilkinson
Buildings 2024, 14(6), 1556; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14061556 - 27 May 2024
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1320
Abstract
COVID-19 has improved awareness of the importance of appropriate indoor air quality (IAQ) in indoor spaces, particularly in classrooms where children are expected to learn. Research has shown that poor IAQ and temperature levels affect the cognitive performance of children. In this paper, [...] Read more.
COVID-19 has improved awareness of the importance of appropriate indoor air quality (IAQ) in indoor spaces, particularly in classrooms where children are expected to learn. Research has shown that poor IAQ and temperature levels affect the cognitive performance of children. In this paper, we critically compare IAQ standards for New Zealand’s Designing Quality Learning Spaces (DQLS Document) against international benchmarks from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, including ASHRAE 62.1, CIBSE TM57, EN-15251, WHO AQGs, and Building Bulletins 99 and 101. The aim was to ascertain the robustness of New Zealand’s DQLS document, identify areas of superiority, and recommend the required improvement for appropriate IAQ and thermal comfort in classrooms. This comparison review focuses on IAQ parameters: CO2 levels, temperature, ventilation rates, room size, occupant density, and occupancy rates. The findings illuminate a slight lag in New Zealand’s DQLS standards compared to her international counterparts. For instance, while New Zealand’s standards align closely with WHO standards for IAQ concerning temperature and ventilation rates, the recommended CO2 range appears slightly inadequate (800 to 2000 ppm) along with occupancy and classroom size for effectively controlling classroom pollutant growth. This paper emphasises the need to align New Zealand’s IAQ and thermal comfort standards with optimal OECD benchmarks. The identified disparities present opportunities for improving learning spaces in terms of CO2 concentration, size of classroom, and occupant density in schools in New Zealand to meet globally recognised standards, ultimately creating a healthier and more conducive learning environment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Indoor Air Quality in Buildings)
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