Bridging the gap between energy consumption and the indoor environmental quality of a 1960s-educational building

The fundamental purpose of a building has evolved from merely providing protection from external environmental climate to more emphasis on integrating building services through building regulations to provide the synergy of comfort, efficiency and safety to the indoor environment. This research recognizes the rising demand and increasing quality of indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in the modern society compared to the acceptable level of previous traditional buildings. Generally due to its varied operations, educational buildings, in this case University libraries have its own set of challenges and barriers such as minimizing damages and decay of books and maintaining indoor conditions with an oversight of providing good IEQ to occupants. This paper presents a detailed evaluation of a 1960s-educational library with 24-hour access at the University of Reading. Through in-situ measurements, modelling and simulations of the building’s energy consumption, IEQ parameters and occupancy patterns, investigations have been performed. Varied scenarios using the Integrated Environmental Solution (IES) software were also investigated. The findings illustrate that due to mixed façade configuration (i.e. sandstone and bricks) there is the unflinching need to balance aesthetics of the facade and functionality of a building to reduce excessive energy use via heating, without compromising on occupant comfort and well-being Although it is envisaged that refurbishing the library building will provide energy savings of up to 40%, this is farfetched and can only be achieved at the detriment of occupant comfort levels as evident in the simulation results, where these savings could not be realised. This paper further discusses the methods, scenarios, and results of ensuring good IEQ, comfort and energy efficiency are not been seen as mutually exclusive. This study forms part of ongoing research into the impact of educational buildings