Buildings have a significant environmental impacts on our planet. They also have a big impact on our lives as we spend up to 90% of our time indoors – either at home or at work – whether that’s at work, at home, or in our spare time. Yet very few people think, and really challenge, how the buildings they spend time in are actually performing.
Saint Gobain has recently showcased their Multi-Comfort building concept at Ecobuild 2015, in London. At the heart of the concept is the principles of the Passivhaus fabric-first approach which lead to significant energy usage reduction, by up to 90%, and improved levels of indoor air quality, thermal comfort and whole-life affordability.
Health and wellbeing is becoming an ever important topic, with building design being recognised as having a key part to play in ensuring occupants spend their time in comfortable environments.
With the factors affecting our sense of wellbeing in a building being particularly complex, Saint-Gobain’s Multi-Comfort concept seeks to address this by taking a holistic view of the different areas of comfort and ensuring a suitable balance in the following areas of focus:
- Thermal comfort
- Audio comfort
- Visual comfort
- Indoor air quality
- Economic comfort
Similarly to the Passivhaus standard, Saint-Gobain offer a Multi-Comfort designer course, enabling architects and designers to gain international accreditation.
