Rethinking the Built Environment:
The built environment is undergoing a rapid transformation. As we navigate the dual pressures of aggressive decarbonization goals and an increasing awareness of public health, industry leaders are forced to re-examine the core principles of building design, operation, and maintenance.
In recent episodes of the Air Quality Matters podcast, I sat down with prominent voices in the sector to explore these shifting paradigms. The conversations spanned from global regulatory frameworks to microscopic environmental controls, offering a comprehensive look at where building science stands today.
Putting Humans at the Centre of Building Performance
At the Indoor Air 2026 conference in Singapore, I caught up with William McQuade , Global Vice President of Government Affairs and Sustainability at Baltimore Aircoil Company as he approached the conclusion of his tenure as ASHRAE President. The reflective discussion highlighted how global trends are forcing a return to the fundamentals of building design: engineering for the people inside them.
The True Cost of the Data Centre Boom
One of the most immediate pressures on modern power grids and HVAC design is the exponential rise of data centres, driven heavily by rapid advancements in artificial intelligence. he noted that governments worldwide are increasingly turning to organisations like ASHRAE for regulatory guidance on data centre cooling, grid stability, and workforce development.
The energy metrics are stark. As he shared a striking comparison from research at MIT: a single generative AI query could consume roughly the same amount of energy as charging a smartphone from zero to 100% and a glass of water. This massive thermal load has turned data centre cooling into a hot-button issue. The conversation explored the industry’s shift toward liquid cooling and the growing regulatory requirements—particularly in Europe—to implement waste heat recovery systems for district heating or localised power generation.
Expanding the Definition of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ)
A core theme of Bill’s presidency has been "Healthy Buildings: Designing for Life," an initiative aimed at codifying post-pandemic lessons to prevent a regression into poor ventilation habits. However, true IEQ extends far beyond simple air exchange rates. He described a five-pillar framework for holistic indoor health:
Air quality
Thermal comfort
Acoustics
Lighting
Water quality
The inclusion of water quality represents a critical, often overlooked intersection with energy efficiency regulations. He pointed out that while global sustainability efforts have successfully reduced building water consumption by roughly 40%, the internal piping infrastructure has rarely been downsized to match.
"You end up with the water staying in the pipes for a longer period of time. That water age has been shown to be tied to an increase in incidence of waterborne disease because the water spends more time in touch with biofilms... right in that temperature range where bad things can grow."
Shifting from Compliance to Continuous Accountability
The discussion raised tough questions about the construction sector's tolerance for failure. Unlike the automotive or pharmaceutical industries, where assets must function flawlessly from day one, commercial and residential buildings are routinely handed over with extensive "snag lists" and operational deficiencies that persist for years.
To combat this, ASHRAE’s new Centre of Excellence for Indoor Environmental Quality is focusing on developing a comprehensive, referenceable IEQ standard for building codes. Crucially, the initiative recognises that high-performance designs mean nothing without proper operation. To bridge the knowledge gap on the ground, the Centre is launching free, downloadable operational checklists and technical resources aimed directly at facility managers and building operators.
With the proliferation of low-cost sensors and AI-driven fault detection, the industry is moving toward a model where a building's reputation will be judged on its verifiable, day-to-day performance over its entire lifecycle, rather than its initial compliance checklist on day one.
One Take – The Whole-Life Carbon Reality of Personalised Comfort
In a companion One Take episode, a recent paper published in the journal Energy and Buildings, titled "A Methodology for Evaluating the Effects of Personalised Environmental Control Systems (PECS) on Building Whole Life Carbon CO2 Emissions."
The paper addresses a long-standing critique of traditional HVAC design: the inefficiency of uniformly conditioning massive, open-plan office spaces to a single temperature point.
Traditional methods frequently result in energy waste while failing to satisfy individual comfort needs. Personalised Environmental Control Systems (PECS)—such as local desk fans, heated chairs, or radiant panels—offer an alternative by controlling the microenvironment directly around the occupant.
By allowing the ambient office temperature to drift higher in the summer (e.g., to 27°C or 29°C), PECS can slash centralised operational cooling energy by up to 50%. However, this study uncovers a critical blind spot: the embodied carbon of the equipment itself.
The Central Infrastructure Trade-Off
Does adding hundreds of individual electronic devices outweigh the carbon saved by altering ambient setpoints? The researchers ran a comprehensive 50-year Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on an office building model in Copenhagen, evaluating both retrofit and new-construction design scenarios.
The Retrofit Scenario: Adding PECS to an existing building yields a modest whole-life carbon reduction (0.9% to 5.1%), driven entirely by operational energy savings since the heavy central infrastructure remains unchanged.
The New-Design Scenario: This is where the true carbon savings occur. Because the localised PECS units manage the immediate thermal load, engineers can radically downsize the central HVAC systems—installing smaller air handling units, chillers, and ductwork. This reduction in raw materials slashes the embodied CO2 of the HVAC system by 10.4% to 27.9%, leading to a total whole-life carbon reduction of up to 26.5%.
The Warning: Standby Power and Load Matching
The paper issues a vital technical warning regarding standby power. When individual devices draw even a minor trickle of power (such as 5W) while idle, those hours on standby can completely erase the operational energy savings in milder climates. Furthermore, if individual units draw too much power (above 70W), they dump excess heat back into the room, placing an unintended load on the central cooling system.
The takeaway for building designers is clear: uniform, brute-force building conditioning is an outdated approach. Localised comfort backed by downsized, highly efficient central systems represents the future—but only if we model, measure, and validate the entire material and operational lifecycle from the start.
The Air Quality Matters Podcast in Partnership with
Particles Plus - Eurovent- Aico - Lindab - S&P
The One Take Podcast in Partnership with
SafeTraces - Inbiot - Farmowood - Ei Electronics - iAir Group - Zehnder
Do check them out in the links and on the Air Quality Matters Website.
If you haven't checked out the YouTube channel its here. Do subscribe if you can; lots more content is coming soon.