Offices may have different indoor environmental quality related problems, such as space, indoor air quality, office workers’ thermal comfort, productivity, and mental stress. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of indoor plants on physiological/psychological responses and productivity, and to examine the mental healthcare status of office workers. To clarify the effect of indoor plants, we conducted a demonstration experiment in two rooms of an office. The experiment was performed in two office spaces (Office A and Office B) located in Kyoto, Japan. Office A was a call center and Office B was a general office. Subjects were office workers working in one of the above two office spaces. In the experiment, nine cycles were conducted while changing the type of plants including vegetables and foliage plants. A preliminary experiment without plants was conducted as a reference case. Results indicated that plant installations in office spaces have certain mental health‐care effects, namely, relaxation of visual fatigue and the feelings of drowsiness of five groups of work‐related fatigue feelings, and the effects by installations of plants depend on the type of plant and industry, although this study had some limitations because of the demonstration experiment.
Indoor thermal environment , energy consumption and occupant 「 s behavior of 620 detached houses in 12cities ofTohoku dis 廿ict were investigated in the winter of2002 by mcans of the questionnaire and the measurement using liquid crysta1 therrnometers , The same investigations have been perforrned at an i ' nten ・ al of 10years since l982 , The pゆ ose of this stUdy is to grasp the trend of indoor thermal environment and energy consumption in houses, fblm the view of the change fbr 20 years , and to obtain more infommation en the indoor enviroment design in the future . This paper describes the change fbr 20 years of indoor temperatures , occupants ' behavior and kerosene consumption d曲 g the heat 血 g season in each cities , and analyzed resUlt on regional characteristics of winter therrna1 perforrnance . As a reslut , it was concluded that cities of Tohoku area could be divided into three groups from the viewpolnt ofthemlal perfbn 皿 ance and occupant 「 s behavior . Aomori was similar to Sapporo, and these of TohokU city area become more and more like Sapporo duhng 20 years ,
The energy consumption and indoor temperature of 13 housing units sited in the northern region of Honshu Island, Japan were investigated for a full two years from Dec. 2002 to Nov. 2004. Five of the houses were installed with all-electric equipment. The annual and daily energy consumption profiles of two typical houses were analyzed, and the annual energy consumption per house was found to range from 40GJ/year to 120GJ/year. The difference of energy consumption between the two years was very small, while in some houses, energy consumption during the second year decreased due to a rise in energy saving awareness. The results indicated that the characteristics of energy consumption were not only greatly influenced by regional climate but also by the use of household equipment and lifestyle. Finally, the relationship between energy consumption for space heating and indoor temperature is discussed.
Comfort temperature is important to investigate because the chosen office indoor temperatures affect the energy used in a building, and a thermally comfortable environment makes the occupants be more productive. The effects of temperature on comfort are broadly recognized for thermal comfort. Japanese office buildings are well equipped with air-conditioning systems to improve the thermal comfort of the occupants. The main objectives of this research were to compare the winter comfort temperature in mixed mode (MM) and heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) office buildings and to investigate the relationship between the comfort temperature and the indoor air temperature. This study measured the thermal environmental conditions of the office buildings and surveyed the thermal comfort of the occupants. The field survey was conducted during winter in seven office buildings located in the Aichi prefecture of Japan. In total, 4466 subjective votes were collected from 46 occupants. The result suggested that the occupants were found to be more satisfied with the thermal environment of MM buildings than that of HVAC office buildings. Overall, 95% of comfort temperatures were in the range 22~28 °C in MM and HVAC buildings, which were higher than the indoor temperature of 20 °C recommended by the Japanese government. The comfort temperature was highly correlated to the indoor air temperature of the MM buildings than to that of HVAC buildings. This indicated that the occupants were more adapted towards the given thermal environment of MM buildings.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.