Special issue on “modelling, assessment, and control of indoor air quality for FM professionals”

Citation

Elmualim, A.A. (2006), "Special issue on “modelling, assessment, and control of indoor air quality for FM professionals”", Facilities, Vol. 24 No. 11/12. https://doi.org/10.1108/f.2006.06924kaa.001

Special issue on “modelling, assessment, and control of indoor air quality for FM professionals”

Special issue on “modelling, assessment, and control of indoor air quality for FM professionals”

Designing for comfortable internal conditions in buildings is a necessary goal for occupants' good health, well-being and high productivity. Particularly as leading firms within the built environment sector worldwide are ever more emphasising the shift from product delivery towards the satisfaction of clients' and users' needs, through service provision, through an integrative model to unlock the potential of FM integration within the design processes of new or refurbished projects. This has an immense implication on the facilities management professions. It is therefore paramount for facilities management professionals to keep in touch with current thinking and best practices to realign themselves with this re-emerging notion of FM integration and this shift towards service provision.

However, continuous improvement in FM integration and the successful application of this shift towards service provision will depend to the highest degree on satisfying user's needs and requirements particularly the provision of adequate internal conditions to maximise productivity. This crucially will have implications on facilities managers. It will further require the full understanding of, among other issues, issues related to indoor air quality in occupied zones. Which further emphasise the importance of capturing operational knowledge through post-occupancy evaluation (POE) and walk-through to feed-forward this knowledge into the design of new projects. It is vital to conduct POE studies in order to learn from the performance of facilities in use and to gauge the extent to which these facilities enable the clients and users' ongoing operations.

The papers included in this special issue were individually selected from the Indoor Air 2005 conference to bring forth and raise the implications of indoor air quality requirement and regulations on the facilities profession. This special issue further aims to assist facilities management to increase the productivity of their assets by providing for comfortable and healthy internal environment for users with low environmental and financial costs. The papers discuss various issues varying from risk management for indoor air pollution, emission classification of building materials, to providing practical strategies for preventing building-related symptoms in office building, input data for design and energy performance calculations of buildings, ventilation, heating, cooling and lighting systems, to the benefits of undertaking post-occupancy evaluation studies for performance evaluation of an integrated natural ventilation and air-conditioning systems.

It is evident that the value service for client/users will be compromised due to the lack of facilities managers involvement at early stages of the design processes of buildings. With the construction sector today, it is evident there is a lack of communication between designers, facilities managers, IT and indoor air quality engineers. This will have greater implications on achieving the full potential of the innovative technologies employed in the design of buildings and hence providing for comfortable, healthy and effective spaces. Which further calls for a more holistic life cycle design approach for projects with genuine involvement of FM, IT and indoor air quality specialist at the early stage of the design processes and throughout the life of the building asset.

Post-occupancy evaluation and walk-through studies provide an ideal tool for processes improvements and understanding of behavioural changes through the various stages of the construction cycle of a project. The studies will provide indispensable knowledge and information to be incorporated into new projects and thus help in achieving the goal of client/user centred integrative total design and service delivery.

Abbas Ali ElmualimSchool of Construction Management and Engineering, The University of Reading, Reading, UK