Effect of internal partitioning on room air quality with mixing ventilation-statistical analysis

In designing modern office buildings, building spaces are frequently zoned by introducing internal partitioning, which may have a significant influence on the room air environment. This internal partitioning was studied by means of model test, numerical simulation, and statistical analysis as the final stage. In this paper, the results produced from the statistical analysis are summarized and presented.

Commuting, CO2 and the location of offices

This paper investigates the extent to which office activity contributes to travel-related CO2 emission. Using ‘end-user’ figures[1], travel accounts for 32% of UK CO2 emission (Commission for Integrated Transport, 2007) and commuting and business travel accounts for a fifth of transport-related CO2 emissions, equating to 6.4% of total UK emissions (Building Research Establishment, 2000). Figures from the Department for Transport (2006) report that 70% of commuting trips were made by car, accounting for 73% of all commuting miles travelled. In assessing the environmental performance of an office building, the paper questions whether commuting and business travel-related CO2 emission is being properly assessed. For example, are office buildings in locations that are easily accessible by public transport being sufficiently rewarded? The de facto method for assessing the environmental performance of office buildings in the UK is the Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM). Using data for Bristol, this paper examines firstly whether BREEAM places sufficient weight on travel-related CO2 emission in comparison with building operation-related CO2 emission, and secondly whether the methodology for assigning credits for travel-related CO2 emission efficiency is capable of discerning intra-urban differences in location such as city centre and out-of-town. The results show that, despite CO2 emission per worker from building operation and travel being comparable, there is a substantial difference in the credit-weighting allocated to each. Under the current version of BREEAM for offices, only a maximum of 4% of the available credits can be awarded for ensuring the office location is environmentally sustainable. The results also show that all locations within the established city centre of Bristol will receive maximum BREEAM credits. Given the parameters of the test there is little to distinguish one city centre location from another and out of town only one office location receives any credits. It would appear from these results that the assessment method is not able to discern subtle differences in the sustainability of office locations

Real estate capital flows and transitional economies

reign real estate capital was a major source of financing domestic property market office construction in Central Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. During the 1990s, over 800 office buildings were either newly constructed or refurbished in Budapest, Prague and Warsaw. The primary focus of this analysis is explaining the spatial construction and redevelopment patterns of the post-1989 office buildings in these cities. Secondarily, we analyze the correlation of foreign direct investment flows to annual construction of office buildings. We seek to explain the location of new or refurbished office buildings in the central business district (CBD) or in non-CBD locations in terms of the effect of time, size of property and other variables, and test whether there is a positive correlation relationship of foreign direct investment flows and new office construction or refurbishment. Integrating relevant foreign direct investment (FDI), economic geography and property theories in the research, the authors attempt to bridge existing gaps in the literature.

Sustainable building certification and the rent premium: a panel data approach

This paper investigates whether obtaining sustainable building certification entails a rental premium for commercial office buildings and tracks its development over time. To this aim, both a difference-in-differences and a fixed-effects model approach are applied to a large panel dataset of office buildings in the United States in the 2000–2010 period. The results indicate a significant rental premium for both ENERGY STAR and LEED certified buildings. Controlling for confounding factors, this premium is shown to have increased steadily from 2006 to 2008, followed by a moderate decline in the subsequent periods. The results also show a significant positive relationship between ENERGY STAR labeling and building occupancy rates.

Does connectivity add value to commercial real estate? The case of managed and conventional offices

This research is a preliminary study which examines the impact of connectivity on value in the managed office and conventional office sectors. The research is based on an extensive literature review, online survey and case studies carried out during 2005. The research shows, for the first time in the UK, how connectivity can increase value in office buildings, and how technology is priced in the market place.

Determinants of satisfaction amongst tenants of UK Offices

Purpose – Corporate Occupiers require offices and services which meet their business needs, whilst landlords must attract and retain occupiers in order to maximise occupancy and rental income. The purpose of this research is to help landlords and corporate occupiers understand each other better, in order to achieve a mutually beneficial relationship. Design/methodology/approach - This paper analyses interviews with 1334 office tenants in the UK, conducted over an 11-year period, to investigate determinants of occupier satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy. Structural equation modelling and regressions are performed using respondents’ ratings of satisfaction with many aspects of occupancy as explanatory variables. The dependent variables include satisfaction with property management, value for money, overall occupier satisfaction, lease renewal intentions and occupiers’ willingness to recommend their landlord. Findings - The aspects with most impact on occupiers’ satisfaction are the office building itself, its location and amenities, and also communication with their property manager, a belief that their business needs are understood and the property manager’s responsiveness to occupiers’ requests. Occupiers’ loyalty depends mainly upon feeling that their rent and service charges provide value for money, an amicable leasing process, the professionalism of their property manager and the Corporate Social Responsibility of the Landlord. ‘Empathy’ is crucial to occupiers’ willingness to recommend their landlord, and clear documentation and efficient legal process improve occupiers’ perception of receiving ‘Value for Money’. Research Limitations - The sample is skewed towards occupiers of prime office buildings in the UK, owned by landlords who care sufficiently about their tenants to commission studies into occupier satisfaction. Practical implications - This research should help to improve the landlord – tenant relationship, benefitting the businesses that rent property and helping building managers understand where to focus their efforts to achieve maximum effect on occupier satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy. Originality/value - There has been little academic research into the determinants of satisfaction of occupiers of UK commercial property. This large-scale study enables the most influential factors to be identified and prioritised.

System Integration of PV/T Collectors in Solar Cooling Systems

The demand for cooling and air-conditioning of building is increasingly ever growing. This increase is mostly due to population and economic growth in developing countries, and also desire for a higher quality of thermal comfort. Increase in the use of conventional cooling systems results in larger carbon footprint and more greenhouse gases considering their higher electricity consumption, and it occasionally creates peaks in electricity demand from power supply grid. Solar energy as a renewable energy source is an alternative to drive the cooling machines since the cooling load is generally high when solar radiation is high. This thesis examines the performance of PV/T solar collector manufactured by Solarus company in a solar cooling system for an office building in Dubai, New Delhi, Los Angeles and Cape Town. The study is carried out by analyzing climate data and the requirements for thermal comfort in office buildings. Cooling systems strongly depend on weather conditions and local climate. Cooling load of buildings depend on many parameters such as ambient temperature, indoor comfort temperature, solar gain to the building and internal gains including; number of occupant and electrical devices. The simulations were carried out by selecting a suitable thermally driven chiller and modeling it with PV/T solar collector in Polysun software. Fractional primary energy saving and solar fraction were introduced as key figures of the project to evaluate the performance of cooling system. Several parametric studies and simulations were determined according to PV/T aperture area and hot water storage tank volume. The fractional primary energy saving analysis revealed that thermally driven chillers, particularly adsorption chillers are not suitable to be utilizing in small size of solar cooling systems in hot and tropic climates such as Dubai and New Delhi. Adsorption chillers require more thermal energy to meet the cooling load in hot and dry climates. The adsorption chillers operate in their full capacity and in higher coefficient of performance when they run in a moderate climate since they can properly reject the exhaust heat. The simulation results also indicated that PV/T solar collector have higher efficiency in warmer climates, however it requires a larger size of PV/T collectors to supply the thermally driven chillers for providing cooling in hot climates. Therefore using an electrical chiller as backup gives much better results in terms of primary energy savings, since PV/T electrical production also can be used for backup electrical chiller in a net metering mechanism.

CH2 - lighting and physiology

This paper explains the designed performances of the new CH2 building in Melbourne, Australia. CH2 is an environmentally significant project that involves biomimicry of natural systems to produce indoor conditions that are conducive to user comfort, health and productivity. This paper focuses on lighting and  physiology and examines the solutions chosen for artificial and natural lighting and the likely effects these will have on building occupants. The purpose of the paper is to critically comment on the adopted strategy and, cognisance of  contemporary thinking in lighting design, to judge the effectiveness of this aspect of the project with a view to later verification and post-occupancy review. The  paper concludes that CH2 is an exemplar of lighting innovation that provides valuable lessons to designers of office buildings, particularly in the Melbourne CBD.

Productivity and the knowledge worker

The industrial age of Taylor and Ford transformed the landscape of office buildings. Office spaces were very uniform and highly supervised. People were units of production. Their work activities were routine. Work study, or "time and motion" studies measured outputs.

The current "information age" way of working, combined with major demographic shifts in the workforce (Gen-Xers, career-shifting Baby Boomers and a greater number of women and minority ethnic groups in the workforce), requires major changes in how to support service industry productivity. The motivations of knowledge workers are very different from those of the industrial age worker. Commitment to the organisation has gone as a result of business re-engineering processes that increased productivity but at the expense of job security. Workers are more likely to be "goal-focussed" rather than "prevention focussed" (Meyer et al 2004 2 ) meaning that instead of doing only what is necessary to retain their job, workers actively seek more meaningful work that matches their personal value systems. They even want to have fun at work!

What contribution can the workplace make to support this work and increase productivity? Surveys have indicated that workers spend more than 75% of their time in their own office space with more than half of that time spent in concentrated work. Concentrated work requires quiet with few distractions, yet workers report that distractions are probably the biggest problem hampering their productivity. What are the current workplace solutions to office space usage? Probably the worst option for distractions is frequently used – open-plan offices, which are a more cost-effective use of space, but at the potential expense of productivity. Visioning architects such as Duffy (1999)3 advocate quiet spaces ("dens") where workers can decamp to carry out their concentrated work. But is this workspace as efficient for the worker – who may have to transport materials back and forth?

Workers know what they need to support their productivity best. On the rare occasions when the staff have been given the opportunity to configure their work-settings, high productivity increases result. Besides noise, environmental quality is perceived as a key factor influencing productivity. Stuffy workplaces generate lethargy. Greater worker satisfaction with their workplace is reported when they have more individual control over the environment.

We need to seriously question the "one-size-fits-all" office building with cellular layouts. Workers need to be involved in the design and fit-out. They need personal control over their environment and an organisation that can support their individual aspirations and values. A number of interventions that could generate significant improvements in knowledge work productivity are proposed.

Perceived conditions of workers in different organizational settings

Purpose: – Research into office design and its effect on employee satisfaction and performance has attracted considerable contemporary research interest. However, most studies have tended to concentrate on the impact of the built environment on human performance, ignoring the actual needs of employees working in different organizational settings. This paper hence aims to investigate the nature and extent of occupant satisfaction with the built environment in different organizational settings in Australia for a range of climates.

Design/methodology/approach: – A survey was conducted in Australia from 2004-2005, comprising 41 buildings, including six government buildings, 14 educational buildings and 21 commercial buildings. The Kruskal-Wallis H test was used to explore whether there are differences in the mean ranking of office environment satisfaction amongst the three organizational settings, and the Mann-Whitney U test was employed to further test whether there are differences in the mean ranking of office environment satisfaction between any two groups.

Findings: – Significant differences were found in aspects of air, temperature, space suitability, flexibility, usability and controllability. Employees in commercial settings seem to be more satisfied with their physical work environment than employees in other organization types. Employees in educational settings showed the highest satisfaction with most variables in the workspace design and management category. Government employees showed a lower level of satisfaction with their physical work environment and workspace design and management.

Originality/value: – Moreover, the government and educational groups showed more similarity with each other, while the commercial group displayed significant difference.

Occupant satisfaction with workplace design in new and old environments

Purpose: – The aim of this paper is to investigate time-factors in occupant-environment relationships.

Design/methodology/approach: – The paper analyses satisfaction ratings on 12 workplace environment features collected from more than 5,000 occupants in 48 office buildings in Australia. The database is divided into seven environment categories: first occupied after construction; new occupation after major update; recent relocation into an existing environment; re-occupying an environment after refurbishment; relocation of workspace in an existing environment; acclimatised occupation of a refurbished workspace; and continued occupation of an existing environment. Cumulative frequency profiles of the collected ratings for each of these categories are analysed qualitatively and quantitatively.

Findings: – The study shows that updated environments which are occupied by the same organisation before and after refurbishment are more successful than environments which are occupied by a new organisation after update. New buildings provide the greatest number of satisfied occupants. While many workplace design aspects are successfully addressed in newly designed and updated environments, satisfaction with acoustic and visual design features is equally poor in all investigated environment categories.

Originality/value: – The study develops understanding of which environment categories, defined by the duration of the occupant-environment relationships, are most successful in providing satisfying design features. The study thereby provides advice for facility management decision making.

A method for evaluating workplace utility

Acquiring office buildings that provide the required level of utility, and maintaining the buildings in that state, should be a priority for any organisation. Failure to do so may give rise to increased churn, reduced productivity, higher employee turnover, increased staff absenteeism and rising health care costs related to heightened stress. There is, however, no single measure of office building utility. Discusses the development of a valid and reliable scale for measuring the utility of public sector office buildings. Data collection involved the use of focus groups and an online survey of 1,800 building occupants. The findings suggest that the utility of public sector office buildings can be measured using a 22-item scale comprising four dimensions. The potential applications of the scale and its use in current research are examined.

The increasing importance of sustainability for building ownership

Purpose — This study seeks to investigate the degree to which energy efficiency is incorporated into office building refurbishment and capital expenditure with the emphasis placed on a cost-benefit analysis from the owner’s perspective.
Design/methodology/approach – In order to develop a research framework, a thorough literature review was conducted of three disciplines being construction technology, building refurbishment and property management. The study identifies differences between varying levels of capital expenditure to ensure an existing building is more energy efficient, with the emphasis placed on the cost of implementation and the potential for tenants to acknowledge the increased energy efficiency via higher rents.
Findings – Office buildings have been identified as a contributor to global warming during the construction phase, however during the building lifecycle there is a greater contribution to CO2 omissions. Whilst various building designs and construction techniques have evolved to improve energy efficiency, the focus has largely been placed on new buildings where it is easier to incorporate change and innovative approaches. However, the proportion of new buildings constructed each year is relatively small in comparison to existing building stock, which requires regular capital expenditure to maintain and attract new tenants within a competitive marketplace.
Practical implications – The increasing importance of energy efficiency affects the office market in a variety of different ways.
Originality/value – This paper identifies important links between the environment and the built environment, and the implications for office building owners.

Residential housing and the green agenda

Australia’s residential development industry is at least superficially embracing environmental and sustainability issues in urban design. Rapidly emerging use of recycled water, lower impact outfalls, the use of roof water and water sensitive design for both housing and landscapes are all trends of interest to the property profession. There is particular interest in the cost of meeting end-user, local Government, State Government and development industry expectations for a green agenda for the residential sector.

Using input-output data in life cycle inventory analysis

The impacts on the environment from human activities are of increasing concern. The need to consider the reduction in energy consumption is of particular interest, especially in the construction and operation of buildings, which accounts for between 30 and 40% of Australia's national energy consumption. Much past and more recent emphasis has been placed on methods for reducing the energy consumed in the operation of buildings. With the energy embodied in these buildings having been shown to account for an equally large proportion of a building's life cycle energy consumption, there is a need to look at ways of reducing the embodied energy of buildings and related products. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is considered to be the most appropriate tool for assessing the life cycle energy consumption of buildings and their products. The life cycle inventory analysis (LCIA) step of a LCA, where an inventory of material and energy inputs is gathered, may currently suffer from several limitations, mainly concerned with the use of incomplete and unreliable data sources and LCIA methods. These traditional methods of LCIA include process-based and input-output-based LCIA. Process-based LCIA uses process specific data, whilst input-output-based LCIA uses data produced from an analysis of the flow of goods and services between sectors of the Australian economy, also known as input-output data. With the incompleteness and unreliability of these two respective methods in mind, hybrid LCIA methods have been developed to minimise the errors associated with traditional LCIA methods, combining both process and input-output data. Hybrid LCIA methods based on process data have shown to be incomplete. Hybrid LCIA methods based on input-output data involve substituting available process data into the input-output model minimising the errors associated with process-based hybrid LCIA methods. However, until now, this LCIA method had not been tested for its level of completeness and reliability. The aim of this study was to assess the reliability and completeness of hybrid life cycle inventory analysis, as applied to the Australian construction industry. A range of case studies were selected in order to apply the input-output-based hybrid LCIA method and evaluate the subsequent results as obtained from each case study. These case studies included buildings: two commercial office buildings, two residential buildings, a recreational building; and building related products: a solar hot water system, a building integrated photovoltaic system and a washing machine. The range of building types and products selected assisted in testing the input-output-based hybrid LCIA method for its applicability across a wide range of product types. The input-output-based hybrid LCIA method was applied to each of the selected case studies in order to obtain their respective embodied energy results. These results were then evaluated with the use of a number of evaluation methods. These evaluation methods included an analysis of the difference between the process-based and input-output-based hybrid LCIA results as an evaluation of the completeness of the process-based LCIA method. The second method of evaluation used was a comparison between equivalent process and input-output values used in the input-output-based hybrid LCIA method as a measure of reliability. It was found that the results from a typical process-based LCIA and process-based hybrid LCIA have a large gap when compared to input-output-based hybrid LCIA results (up to 80%). This gap has shown that the currently available quantity of process data in Australia is insufficient. The comparison between equivalent process-based and input-output-based LCIA values showed that the input-output data does not provide a reliable representation of the equivalent process values, for material energy intensities, material inputs and whole products. Therefore, the use of input-output data to account for inadequate or missing process data is not reliable. However, as there is currently no other method for filling the gaps in traditional process-based LCIA, and as input-output data is considered to be more complete than process data, and the errors may be somewhat lower, using input-output data to fill the gaps in traditional process-based LCIA appears to be better than not using any data at all. The input-output-based hybrid LCIA method evaluated in this study has shown to be the most sophisticated and complete currently available LCIA method for assessing the environmental impacts associated with buildings and building related products. This finding is significant as the construction and operation of buildings accounts for a large proportion of national energy consumption. The use of the input-output-based hybrid LCIA method for products other than those related to the Australian construction industry may be appropriate, especially if the material inputs of the product being assessed are similar to those typically used in the construction industry. The input-output-based hybrid LCIA method has been used to correct some of the errors and limitations associated with previous LCIA methods, without the introduction of any new errors. Improvements in current input-output models are also needed, particularly to account for the inclusion of capital equipment inputs (i.e. the energy required to manufacture the machinery and other equipment used in the production of building materials, products etc.). Although further improvements in the quantity of currently available process data are also needed, this study has shown that with the current available embodied energy data for LCIA, the input-output-based hybrid LCIA appears to provide the most reliable and complete method for use in assessing the environmental impacts of the Australian construction industry.