Reflections on the Evidentiary Basis of Indoor Air Quality Standards
Christiane Berger,
Ardeshir Mahdavi,
Elie Azar,
Karol Bandurski,
Leonidas Bourikas,
Timuçin Harputlugil,
Runa T. Hellwig,
Ricardo Forgiarini Rupp,
Marcel Schweiker
Affiliations
Christiane Berger
Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Human Building Interaction, Aalborg University, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark
Ardeshir Mahdavi
Department of Building Physics and Building Ecology, Faculty of Architecture and Planning, TU Wien, 1040 Vienna, Austria
Elie Azar
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
Karol Bandurski
Faculty of Environmental Engineering and Energy, Institute of Environmental Engineering and Building Installations, Poznań University of Technology, 60-965 Poznań, Poland
Leonidas Bourikas
Energy & Climate Change Group, School of Engineering, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
Timuçin Harputlugil
Department of Architecture, Çankaya University, Ankara 06790, Turkey
Runa T. Hellwig
Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Human Building Interaction, Aalborg University, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark
Ricardo Forgiarini Rupp
Department of Environmental and Resource Engineering, International Centre for Indoor Environment and Energy, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
Marcel Schweiker
Institute for Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine, Healthy Living Spaces Lab, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany
Buildings are expected to provide healthy and comfortable indoor environmental conditions for their users. Such conditions have diverse dimensions, including thermal, visual, air quality, auditory, and olfactory aspects. Indoor environmental quality standards, guidelines, and codes typically inform professionals in the building design and operation phase in view of procedural, contractual, and legal boundary conditions. Given this critical role of standards, it seems significant to examine the applicability and scientific validity on a regular basis. In this context, the present paper focuses on the standard-based definition of indoor air quality (IAQ) indicators and their respective values. Hence, the main aim of this effort is to study several common national and international IAQ standards in view of the scope to which they include direct or indirect evidence for the validity and applicability of their mandates and requirements. To this end, selected IAQ standards were assessed via a structured schema that includes not only basic information, quality indicators, and suggested and recommended value ranges, but also any reference to scientific studies. The findings of this effort identify certain issues with the transparency of the chain of evidence from the results of technical literature and standard-based IAQ recommendations. Moreover, recommendations are made for the development of future transparent and evidence-based IAQ standards and guidelines.
