Author(s)

C.-M. Lai

Abstract

This paper presents the methodology for developing a comprehensive indicator for indoor environment assessment. It intends to provide the occupants with the measures of Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ). These indicators were drawn up by a literature review based on the practicability, economic and feasible aspects. The categories we considered included acoustics, vibrations, illumination, thermal comfort, indoor air quality, water quality, greens and electromagnetic fields. The AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) method was used to carry out the weighting among the categories and these indicators in the same category respectively. The consistency ratio was also calculated to filter out the null questionnaire. Finally, a comprehensive indicator, IEI(AHP) (Indoor Environment Indicator), composed of the filtered indicators, is proposed to assess the indoor environment in built buildings. Keywords: indoor environment, AHP, green building. 1 Introduction It is a common consensus within the "green building" activities that indoorenvironment issue has to be an essential part of the global sustainability. There is a worldwide trend to develop a system that can provide comprehensive performance-assessments of buildings in different environmental scales: global, local and indoor issue. The government of Taiwan is toward this trend. One of the main areas of an environmental assessment method under development is the impact of the indoor environment on occupants' health. Chen et al. [1] mentioned that indoor environment is important for people's health and welfare, because up to 90% of a typical person's time is spent indoors.

Keywords

indoor environment, AHP, green building.