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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Just by breathing or wearing deodorant, you have more influence over your office space than you might think, a growing body of evidence shows. But could these basic acts of existence also be polluting the air in the office room where you work?
To find out, a team of engineers at Purdue University has been conducting one of the largest studies of its kind in the office spaces of a building rigged with thousands of sensors. The goal is to identify all types of indoor air contaminants and recommend ways to control them through how a building is designed and operated.
"If we want to provide better air quality for office workers to improve their productivity, it is important to first understand what's in the air and what factors influence the emissions and removal of pollutants," said Brandon Boor, an assistant professor of civil engineering with a courtesy appointment in environmental and ecological engineering.
The data is showing that people and ventilation systems greatly impact the chemistry of indoor air -- possibly more than anything else in an office space. The researchers will present their initial findings at the 2019 American Association for Aerosol Research Conference in Portland, Oregon, Oct. 14-18.
"The chemistry of indoor air is dynamic. It changes throughout the day based on outdoor conditions, how the ventilation system operates and occupancy patterns in the office," Boor said.
The building, called the Living Labs at Purdue's Ray W. Herrick Laboratories, uses an array of sensors to precisely monitor four open-plan office spaces and to track the flow of indoor and outdoor air through the ventilation system. The team developed a new technique to track occupancy by embedding temperature sensors in each desk chair.
Through use of the Living Labs, Boor's team has begun to identify previously unknown behaviors of chemicals called volatile organic compounds, such as how they are transformed in ventilation systems and removed by filters.
"We wanted to shed light on the behind-the-scenes role ventilation systems have on the air we breathe," Boor said.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Rupert Pupnick on Thursday October 10 2019, @05:13PM
I'm all for good office HVAC, but there's an implicit baseline office configuration ("open-plan office spaces"), and if you go to the Purdue LivingLabs webpage, here is an image of what that configuration might look like:
https://engineering.purdue.edu/Herrick/facilities/livinglabs_students.jpg [purdue.edu]
In other words, cramming as many people into a given space with as little separation as possible. I was hoping that after WeWork crashed and burned, that this sort of thinking would be on the wane. However, WeWork failed because of its unsustainable business model-- not because the actual workers who would be affected would be getting the shaft with respect to working conditions.
Maybe if you don't cram people so close together you don't need as much envirnomental and ecological engineering?
Thanks, Purdue, for helping to reduce the quality of office work life, and for lowering the expectations for workers of the future.