Future-Ready, Resilient Spaces
Healthy Buildings Strategy
Air Quality & Occupant Wellbeing
Achieving a balance between indoor air quality, energy efficiency, and occupant comfort is critical. Our approach integrates advanced filtration, ventilation strategies, and environmental controls to reduce airborne contaminants and support building resilience.
Capabilities
- Design Guidance – Strategic Approach
- Advanced Filtration Technology
- Anticipate – Evaluate – Manage indoor environmental contaminants
- Focus on Air Quality – Ventilation – Thermal Health – Moisture control
- Predictive modeling – Aerosol flow paths
Enhancing Indoor Air Performance
Engineered Solutions for Healthy Buildings
Achieving a balance between indoor air quality (IAQ), energy consumption, and occupant comfort within the built environment is challenging. Heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) can help reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, while removing other air contaminants that may have negative health effects. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) endeavors to achieve this through guidelines and standards focused on advancing building science as it relates to environmental quality. Reviewing the commonly used design methods to enhance filtration, with a specific focus on methods to achieve and maintain a Healthy Building is the strategy.
Rather than relying only on diluting the concentration of contaminants with outdoor air, designing with enhanced filtration of both recirculated and ventilation air can improve IAQ and result in the protection of the occupants within the space. Adequate humidity control has also shown to reduce occupant risk from airborne pathogens and should be considered as part of the IAQ strategy. The application of enhanced particle, gas-phase and biological filtration for compliance with Standard 62.1 “Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality” and Standard 241 “Control of Infectious Aerosols” is part of a comprehensive engineered approach.
Rather than relying only on diluting the concentration of contaminants with outdoor air, designing with enhanced filtration of both recirculated and ventilation air can improve IAQ and result in the protection of the occupants within the space. Adequate humidity control has also shown to reduce occupant risk from airborne pathogens and should be considered as part of the IAQ strategy. The application of enhanced particle, gas-phase and biological filtration for compliance with Standard 62.1 “Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality” and Standard 241 “Control of Infectious Aerosols” is part of a comprehensive engineered approach.
Healthy Buildings optimized for
Comfort – Safety – Performance
Future-Ready Buildings
Building Resiliency
in Times of Climate Change
From recent wildfires and air pollution to ongoing extreme heat, the effects of climate change are being felt all over the world. While we typically think of these issues in terms of outdoor environments, the majority of human exposure to outdoor pollution, including wildfire smoke, actually occurs indoors. So as the climate crisis increases in urgency, it’s time to change the way we think about how our buildings can respond to protect us from a range of environmental threats.
Through the right strategies and solutions, resilient buildings can be powerful tools for protecting people from pollution, heat and other environmental threats, while playing a role in supporting overall health, performance and productivity. New construction and retrofit designs should be considered with respect to how HVAC equipment , digital solutions and services can help improve outcomes and create greater resiliency in buildings moving forward.
Pertinent aspects of ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 62.1 Ventilation and Acceptable indoor Air Quality should be reviewed as well as the latest HVAC design strategies outlined in ASHRAE Std 241 Control of Infectious Aerosols.