Discussion on the Network for Environmental Quality Management

Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com is not the same as in the past. In the past materials have been evaluated on the basis of their physical properties. Today, the integrated design process looks at performance of a building as a system with materials interacting and contributing to the performance of the system. Effectively, even though our testing methodology is still based on comparing materials, we now focus on assembly performance. An assembly could for example be a wall or a ceiling-roof assembly. The ultimate objective of building physics (or building science) is to provide understanding and predictability in the process of design and construction for the sustainable built environment. The objective is to create harmony between the environment, society and economy. Sustainability involves different scales: country, region, city or individual building. The term “balanced buildings” meaning a building where each of the above scales is equally important. Reduced energy loads in PHs bring a paradigm of design that we will discuss in the following paper. Building physics tells us how to merge the passive house concepts with solar engineering and how to integrate the building shell with mechanical services. Unfortunately, building physics does not tell us how to integrate people with their environment. Therefore, we do not use the engineering terms like net zero or near zero buildings or even passive house plus. Instead, we introduce another term, namely: environmental quality management (EQM) to highlight that the occupant of the indoor space is the focus of our design. In doing so, the building physics will automatically include durability of the shell, energy efficiency and carbon emissions as they relate to the environment and issues such as indoor climate control with individual ventilation on demand (personal climate control).