Investigating the Effects of Environmental Factors on Office Buildings’ Indoor Environment Quality in Iran’s Cold Climate (Case study: Kermanshah)

Subject Areas : Urban Design

Maryam Ansarimanesh ¹ , Nazanin Nasrollahi ²

1 - Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Art and Architecture, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
2 - Assistant Professor, Departmant of Art and Architecture,University of Ilam, Iran.

Received: 2014-01-29 Accepted : 2014-04-05 Published : 2014-06-01

Keywords: Office buildings, Health, Indoor environmental quality, Enviromental factors,

Abstract :

The inappropriate indoor environmental quality of a building causes different problems such asheadache and breathing difficulties which are called the syndrome of building sickness. These diseases reduce theefficiency of people and deteriorate the quality of their life. Studies carried out in hundreds of big office buildings acrossthe world show that the indoor environment qualities of these buildings are about the average and a lot of employeesare dissatisfied with their work place. Besides, the studies show that many of employees suffer from diseases associatedwith buildings. These diseases greatly affect the efficiency and working hours of employees and have grave economicconsequences for the countries. If a space, including an office space, enjoys a qualitative interior, the employees`health and as a result their efficiency will improve. Therefore, attending to the indoor environment quality is a mustin designing modern office buildings. The present field study was conducted on 10 office building in Kermanshah inwinter 1390—a city which is located in a cold climate—and investigated the effect of environmental factors on theoffice indoor environment quality. The analysis of data by Statistical Package for Social Science Software1 revealedthat the variables of suitable view and landscape, and ventilation have had the greatest effect and the sun light variablehas had the smallest effect on the indoor environment quality.

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