High quality indoor environments for office buildings

The quality of office indoor environments is considered to consist of those factors that impact the occupants according to their health and well-being and (by consequence) their productivity. Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) can be characterized by four indicators: • Indoor air quality indicators • Thermal comfort indicators • Lighting indicators • Noise indicators. Within each indicator, there are specific metrics that can be utilized in determining an acceptable quality of an indoor environment based on existing knowledge and best practice. Examples of these metrics are: indoor air levels of pollutants or odorants; operative temperature and its control; radiant asymmetry; task lighting; glare; ambient noise. The way in which these metrics impact occupants is not fully understood, especially when multiple metrics may interact in their impacts. It can be estimated that the potential cost of lost productivity from poor IEQ may be much in excess of other operating costs of a building. However, the relative productivity impacts of each of the four indicators is largely unknown. The CRC Project ‘Regenerating Construction to Enhance Sustainability’ has a focus on IEQ impacts before and after building refurbishment. This paper provides an overview of IEQ impacts and criteria and the implementation of a CRC project that is currently researching these factors during the refurbishment of a Melbourne office building. IEQ measurements and their impacts will be reported in a future paper

High quality indoor environments for sustainable office buildings

The quality of office indoor environments is considered to consist of those factors that impact occupants according to their health and well-being and (by consequence) their productivity. Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) can be characterized by four indicators: • Indoor air quality indicators • Thermal comfort indicators • Lighting indicators • Noise indicators. Within each indicator, there are specific metrics that can be utilized in determining an acceptable quality of an indoor environment based on existing knowledge and best practice. Examples of these metrics are: indoor air levels of pollutants or odorants; operative temperature and its control; radiant asymmetry; task lighting; glare; ambient noise. The way in which these metrics impact occupants is not fully understood, especially when multiple metrics may interact in their impacts. While the potential cost of lost productivity from poor IEQ has been estimated to exceed building operation costs, the level of impact and the relative significance of the above four indicators are largely unknown. However, they are key factors in the sustainable operation or refurbishment of office buildings. This paper presents a methodology for assessing indoor environment quality (IEQ) in office buildings, and indicators with related metrics for high performance and occupant comfort. These are intended for integration into the specification of sustainable office buildings as key factors to ensure a high degree of occupant habitability, without this being impaired by other sustainability factors. The assessment methodology was applied in a case study on IEQ in Australia’s first ‘six star’ sustainable office building, Council House 2 (CH2), located in the centre of Melbourne. The CH2 building was designed and built with specific focus on sustainability and the provision of a high quality indoor environment for occupants. Actual IEQ performance was assessed in this study by field assessment after construction and occupancy. For comparison, the methodology was applied to a 30 year old conventional building adjacent to CH2 which housed the same or similar occupants and activities. The impact of IEQ on occupant productivity will be reported in a separate future paper

Forecasting trends in the Brisbane central business district office market

The Queensland Department of Public Works (DPW) holds a significant interest in the Brisbane Central Business District (CBD) in controlling approximately 20 percent of the office space within its confines. This comprises a total of 333,903 square metres of space, of which 170,111 square metres is owned and 163,792 square metres is leased from the private sector. The department’s nominal ownership extends to several enduring, landmark buildings as well as several modern office towers. The portfolio includes the oldest building in the CBD, being the former Commissariat Stores building and one of the newest, a 15,000 square metre office tower under construction at 33 Charlotte Street.

The role of decision-maker preferences in tenancy selection of CBD office accommodation – preliminary literature review

The literature and anecdotal evidence suggests that that there is more to tenancy selection (firm location) than the profit maximisation drive that traditional neo-classical economic location theory suggests. In the first instance these models assume property markets are rational and perfectly competitive; the CBD office market is clearly neither rational nor perfectly competitive. This fact alone relegates such models to the margins of usefulness for an industry that seeks to satisfy tenant demand in order to optimise returns on capital invested. Acknowledgment of property market imperfections are universally accepted to the extent that all contemporary texts discuss the lack of a coherent centralised market place and incomplete and poorly disseminated information processes as fundamental inadequacies which characterise the property market inefficiencies. Less well researched are the facets of the market which allow the observer to determine market activity to be significantly irrational. One such facet is that of ‘decision maker preferences’. The decision to locate a business operation at one location as opposed to another seems ostensibly a routine choice based on short, medium and long term business objectives. These objectives are derived from a process of strategic planning by one or more individuals whose goal is held to be to optimise outcomes which benefit the business (and presumably those employed within it). However the decision making processes appear bounded by how firms function, the institutional context in which they operate, as well as by opportunistic behaviour by individual decision makers who allow personal preferences to infiltrate and ‘corrupt’ the process. In this way, history, culture, geography, as well as institutions all become significant to the extent that these influence and shape individual behaviour which in turn determine the morphology of individual preferences, as well as providing a conduit for them to take effect. This paper exams historical and current literature on the impact of individual behaviour in the decision making process within organisations as a precursor to an investigation of the tenancy decision making process within the CBD office market. Literature on the topic falls within a number of research disciplines, philosophy, psychology and economics to name a few.

Waste minimisation in office refurbishment projects : an Australian perspective

The refurbishment of commercial buildings is growing as a percentage of overall construction activity in Australia and this trend is likely to continue. Refurbishment generates a significant waste stream much of which is potentially reusable or recyclable. Despite this potential, several factors are known to unnecessarily inhibit the amount of recycling that actually occurs on renovation projects. In order to identify the reasons causing this reluctance, a process of project monitoring and expert consultation was carried out. Twenty three experts experienced in commercial refurbishment projects and three waste contractors with specific knowledge of construction waste were interviewed. Records of receipts for waste from a case study project reveal three principal factors inhibiting recycling rates: the presence of asbestos in the building; the continued occupation of the building during construction; and the breaking up of a large project into small separate contracts thereby reducing economies of scale. To ascertain the potential for improvement, current rates for reuse and recycling of materials were collected from the experts. The results revealed a considerable variation in practice between companies and indicated key areas which should be targeted to improve performance.

Transfer of learning across the globe : pre-service teachers taking the initiative

A continuing challenge for pre-service teacher education is the learning transfer between the university based components and the practical school based components of their training. It is not clear how easily pre-service teachers can transfer university learnings into ‘in school’ practice. Similarly, it is not clear how easily knowledge learned in the school context can be disembedded from this particular context and understood more generally by the pre-service teacher. This paper examines the effect of a community of practice formed specifically to explore learning transfer via collaboration and professional enquiry, in ‘real time’, across the globe. “Activity Theory” (Engestrom, 1999) provided the theoretical framework through which the cognitive, physical and social processes involved could be understood. For the study, three activity systems formed community of practice network. The first activity system involved pre-service teachers at a large university in Queensland, Australia. The second activity system was introduced by the pre-service teachers and involved Year 12 students and teachers at a private secondary school also in Queensland, Australia. The third activity system involved university staff engineers at a large university in Pennsylvania, USA. The common object among the three activity systems was to explore the principles and applications of nanotechnology. The participants in the two Queensland activity systems, controlled laboratory equipment (a high powered Atomic Force Microscope – CPII) in Pennsylvania, USA, with the aim of investigating surface topography and the properties of nano particles. The pre-service teachers were to develop their remote ‘real time’ experience into school classroom tasks, implement these tasks, and later report their findings to other pre-service teachers in the university activity system. As an extension to the project, the pre-service teachers were invited to co-author papers relating to the project. Data were collected from (a) reflective journals; (b) participant field notes – a pre-service teacher initiative; (c) surveys – a pre-service teacher initiative; (d) lesson reflections and digital recordings – a pre-service teacher initiative; and (e) interviews with participants. The findings are reported in terms of the major themes: boundary crossing, the philosophy of teaching, and professional relationships The findings have implications for teacher education. The researchers feel that deliberate planning for networking between activity systems may well be a solution to the apparent theory/practice gap. Proximity of activity systems need not be a hindering issue.

Creating an asset registry for railway electrical traction equipment with open standards

An asset registry arguably forms the core system that needs to be in place before other systems can operate or interoperate. Most systems have rudimentary asset registry functionality that store assets, relationships, or characteristics, and this leads to different asset management systems storing similar sets of data in multiple locations in an organisation. As organisations have been slowly moving their information architecture toward a service-oriented architecture, they have also been consolidating their multiple data stores, to form a “single point of truth”. As part of a strategy to integrate several asset management systems in an Australian railway organisation, a case study for developing a consolidated asset registry was conducted. A decision was made to use the MIMOSA OSA-EAI CRIS data model as well as the OSA-EAI Reference Data in building the platform due to the standard’s relative maturity and completeness. A pilot study of electrical traction equipment was selected, and the data sources feeding into the asset registry were primarily diagrammatic based. This paper presents the pitfalls encountered, approaches taken, and lessons learned during the development of the asset registry.

Implication of global warming on air-conditioned office buildings in Australia

As climate change will entail new conditions for the built environment, the thermal behaviour of air-conditioned office buildings may also change. Using building computer simulations, the impact of warmer weather is evaluated on the design and performance of air-conditioned office buildings in Australia, including the increased cooling loads and probable indoor temperature increases due to a possibly undersized air-conditioning system, as well as the possible change in energy use. It is found that existing office buildings would generally be able to adapt to the increasing warmth of year 2030 Low and High scenarios projections and the year 2070 Low scenario projection. However, for the 2070 High scenario, the study indicates that the existing office buildings in all capital cities of Australia would suffer from overheating problems. For existing buildings designed for current climate conditions, it is shown that there is a nearly linear correlation between the increase of average external air temperature and the increase of building cooling load. For the new buildings designed for warmer scenarios, a 28-59% increase of cooling capacity under the 2070 High scenario would be required.

Customer satisfaction survey of the facilities provided by office building “X” in Surabaya

Many high-rise office buildings have been built in Surabaya. The investors have provided complimentary facilities to satisfy their tenants. However, not all given facilities has satisfied the tenants. The purpose of this study is to find out the level of tenant satisfaction in office “X” to the existing facilities and to suggest additional required facilities. Although office “X” is offered the highest rental rate and has known as a prestigious place in Surabaya, only location and public transport have satisfied the Indonesian tenants. Meanwhile, the multi National companies have not satisfied for any existing facilities. Additional ATM facilities and presentable cafeteria, improvement of service and the security system are required by tenants.

Dragline automation - a decade of development : shared autonomy for improving mining equipment productivity

Draglines are massive machines commonly used in surface mining to strip overburden, revealing the targeted minerals for extraction. Automating some or all of the phases of operation of these machines offers the potential for significant productivity and maintenance benefits. The mining industry has a history of slow uptake of automation systems due to the challenges contained in the harsh, complex, three-dimensional (3D), dynamically changing mine operating environment. Robotics as a discipline is finally starting to gain acceptance as a technology with the potential to assist mining operations. This article examines the evolution of robotic technologies applied to draglines in the form of machine embedded intelligent systems. Results from this work include a production trial in which 250,000 tons of material was moved autonomously, experiments demonstrating steps towards full autonomy, and teleexcavation experiments in which a dragline in Australia was tasked by an operator in the United States.