Resilient Indoor Thermal Environments: Findings & Future Policy from an Irish National Study on Non-Residential Buildings

DESCRIPTION OF THE SESSION

The following session will discuss the outcomes of a 3 year national study on indoor thermal resilience and overheating risk in low energy non-residential buildings. The study, entitled project RESILIENCE, is near completion and this topical session will form the basis to discuss the policy implications around overheating and thermal resilience in non-residential buildings in Ireland and for temperate climates more generally. The project monitored overheating risk in 33 high performance non-residential buildings and evaluated factors of influence in building designs that were thought to have a high leverage effect on overheating. The aim is to foster an opportunity for international experts to debate the appropriate direction of regulations and policy to reduce vulnerability lock-in in building designs, using Project RESILIENCE as a framework for the discussion. There will be two collaborative engagement parts to the session; a workshop and an open discussion aided with interactive tools to collect opinions, ideas, recommendations from participants. The outcome will be a position on how research can better support policy initiatives that are needed to address thermal vulnerability in the built environment.

OBJECTIVES OF THE SESSION

The session will have four key objectives including:

  • To explore how designers can achieve indoor thermal resilience in the context of non-residential buildings and national regulations.
  • To critically evaluate existing vulnerabilities in a sample of high performance low energy Irish buildings and assess the presence of any recurring trends.
  • To develop a position on the future direction of regulatory policy designed to mitigate overheating in temperate climates and also assess adaptation measures.

SESSION PROGRAMME

  1. Introduction (12 mins)

    • Project RESILIENCE: Overview & Workshop Planning. Adam O’Donovan, Munster Technological University, Ireland
    • Overheating Mitigation Policy: Current Trends and Future Outlook. Paul D. O’ Sullivan, Munster Technological University, Ireland

     

    Workshop (30 mins)

    • Assessing the Vulnerability of Existing Building Design related to Regulations: Ireland as a case study. Paul O’ Sullivan, Munster Technological University, Ireland

     

    Study Results (18 mins)

    • Indoor Thermal Resilience in Irish Schools, Office and Healthcare Buildings. Adam O’Donovan, Munster Technological University, Ireland
    • Overall outcomes from the project and next steps. Adam O’ Donovan, Munster Technological University, Ireland

     

    Discussion (30 mins)

    • Connecting Resilient Overheating Mitigation Policy to Research. Paul O’ Sullivan, Munster Technological University, Ireland.

SESSION CHAIRS

  1. Paul D. O’Sullivan, Munster Technological University, Ireland
  2. Adam O’ Donovan, Munster Technological University, Ireland

SESSION DURATION

  • 90 minutes
Scroll to Top

Prof. Sani Dimitroulopoulou (UK Health Security Agency, UKHSA)

Sani is a Principal Environmental Public Health Scientist, Air Quality and Public Health, UKHSA (formerly Public Health England, PHE) leading on indoor air quality and health.
She is also Visiting Professor, at Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, The Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources, UCL.
 
Her research interests include exposure assessment to air pollution, based on modelling and monitoring of outdoor and indoor air pollution and ventilation, health impact assessments and development of environmental public health indicators and indoor air quality guidelines.
She works closely with colleagues from UK Government Departments (e.g. DHSC, DfE, DLUHC, Defra, DESNZ) and Organisations (e.g. WHO, NICE, CIBSE, RCP/RCPCH, BSI) to provide expert advice on indoor air quality and health. She participated in the Cross Whitehall Group for the revision of the Building Regulations, Part F and she sits on the Advisory Board organised by DLUHC for the revision of HHSRS (Housing Health and Safety Rating System). She was the UKHSA project manager for the development of the DHSC/UKHSA/DLUHC guidance on “Damp and mould: understanding and addressing the health risks for rented housing providers”. She is the Chair of UK Indoor Environments Group (UKIEG).

Dr. Ana Maria Scutaru

Ana Maria Scutaru is a scientist at the German Environment Agency (UBA) in Berlin. She received her PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the Institute of Pharmacy at the Freie Universität Berlin in 2011. Her work focuses on the health-related evaluation of building products emissions into indoor air and other indoor air related topics. Ana Maria Scutaru is the secretary of the Committee for Health-related Evaluation of Building Products (AgBB) and of the EU-LCI Working Group within the harmonisation framework for health-based evaluation of indoor emissions from construction products in the European Union.

Corinne Mandin earned her PhD in environmental chemistry from the University of Rennes, France.
She has been working on human exposure to chemical substances and physical agents and the related health effects, first at INERIS (French national institute for industrial environment and risks) for 8 years, and then at CSTB (French scientific and technical center for building) for 13 years. At CSTB, she coordinated the French Indoor Air Quality Observatory, a public research program created in 2001 to carry out nationwide surveys on air quality in buildings. In 2022, she joined the French institute for radiation protection and nuclear safety (IRSN) where she leads the radiation epidemiology group.
She has been involved in various European and international projects and expert committees, including at the World Health Organization and the European Joint Research Center. She is currently chairing the expert committee dedicated to outdoor and indoor air quality at the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (Anses). She was president of the International Society for Indoor Air Quality and Climate (ISIAQ) from 2020 to 2022. In 2022, she coedited the Handbook of Indoor Air Quality (Springer).