Indoor environment quality in buildings and its impact on outdoor environment

The main purpose of buildings is to provide a comfortable living environment for their occupants. This includes, among others, thermal, visual and acoustic comfort as well as indoor air quality. Except during the 1950’s and 1960’s, it has always been considered important that an excess use of energy should be avoided in the construction and the management of a building, sometimes even at the cost of user comfort. Energy saving is, however, not the main purpose of the building. Indeed, if it were really so, the largest energy savings would be obtained by not erecting the building in the first place.