IAQradio thanks Don Weekes for pinch hitting until Dr. Jie Zhao was able to join today's broadcast.
IAQradio Episode 697 draft blog
How modern buildings are integrating IEQ controls, lighting, acoustics and more to make work environments healthy and high performing
Jie Zhao, PhD VP at Delos Labs
This week IAQradio welcomed Jie Zhao, PhD VP at Delos Labs for a show on how modern buildings are integrating IEQ controls, lighting, acoustics and more to make work environments healthy and high performing.
Dr. Zhao is the Head of Delos Labs and an Executive Vice President at Delos. Delos is a wellness, real estate and technology company headquartered in New York City. As the creator of the WELL Building Standard, Delos develops products, programs and solutions that transform our environments into vehicles for health, well-being, performance, and resilience. Jie leads the research team to support product innovations and market strategies. He is also a lecturer in the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on Human-building Interactions, including total building performance, occupant behavior in buildings, sensing and controls in buildings, health, comfort, and productivity of building occupants, as well as building energy efficiency and sustainability. Jie received his PhD Building Performance and Diagnostics from Carnegie Mellon University.
Nuggets mined from today’s broadcast:
As a child, Dr. Jie Zhao, PhD grew up in China where he experienced firsthand the rapid growth and urbanization of China. The building boom resulted in the deterioration of environmental quality both outdoors and indoors. This piqued his interests in: lowering pollution, improving health, bettering building performance and enhancing diagnostics with the goals of optimizing occupant health, happiness, productivity and sustainability.
His undergrad and Masters’ Degree are in Electrical Engineering and his unique PhD is in Building Performance and Diagnostics from Carnegie Mellon University.
Who is Delos? Delos is a complex business that is headquartered in New York City and almost a decade old. Delos is a for-profit business. Delos is private equity funded. The CEO and COO of Delos have experience in research and funding. Delos is focused on wellness technology and seeks to infuse science into everything they do with 20-30 PhD research scientists. Well Building Institute, Well Living Lab (in collaboration with Mayo Clinic Rochester, MN). Delos has offices in: US, Canada, Australia, China, Dubai and Europe.
What is Delos’ biggest contribution to the art and science of IAQ? Delos’ biggest contribution to society is the Well Building Standard, which is available to everyone free of charge, is trusted and utilized in over 100 countries. The Well Building Standard has grown into a movement.
How important are lighting and acoustics? While noise, temperature, water and air have been studied and are more understood; from a public health perspective lighting and acoustics are among the most important issues. [The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent global health research center at the University of Washington which studies the burden of disease.
https://www.healthdata.org/ ]. Light is the most important external factor on the human body. Light triggers melatonin production. New research in how eyes function in circadian rhythm won a recent Noble Prize. No artificial light can be as bright than the sun. The sun has the most complete spectrum of light. Bright light in the morning is important to health. From outdoors is best (or from an energizing mirror) in the morning with reduced light after sundown.
Five Factors of Light: 1. strength, 2. color (spectrum). 3. when exposed (frequency), 4. history of the light and 5. duration.
Is the direction windows face on a building important? Yes, computer modeling simulations of sunlight versus shade was a significant component of his PhD research at CMU.
Does Delos track the health of building occupants? A dedicated team is tracking occupant health before and after implementation of the Well Building Standard and has recently published a paper.
Does Delos study melatonin levels of building occupants? Delos collaborates with Mayo Clinic and a number of universities. Melatonin studies are being done by Mayo Clinic and others.
Is all noise the same? No, harmful noise is generated by factories, airports, shooting ranges, etc. Harmful noise has been identified by the Global Burden of Disease Data Base.
The trend to open offices has resulted in more office noise and less speech privacy. Balance the ability to hear with need for speech privacy.
Noise is annoying, can result in hearing loss, increase stress, and makes people tired.
Delos evaluates acoustic products that are in the marketplace (i.e. acoustic insulation panels, green walls, chemical moss, electronic sound masking)
People as pollution sources? The goal is to make occupants healthier and happier. When the building is examined mathematically occupants are the biggest sources of pollution contributors include: CO² production, particulate matter, VOCs, cooking, cleaning, etc.
Delos is raising awareness and offers practical mitigation solutions such as monitoring, recommendations to augment range hoods with air purification devices.
Air movement and airflow in buildings? We now know that COVID was spread by airborne particles. Delos has studied simulations of skilled nursing home rooms and found significant reductions (60%-70%) within rooms and 90% between rooms.
Delos Well Building Institute also uses computational fluid dynamics to validate modeling. Delos measures airflow patterns in physical spaces in buildings using tracer gas.
Z-Man signing off
Trivia:
Name the biochemical oscillator that cycles with a stable phase and is synchronized with solar time. This oscillator’s in vivo period is close to 24 hours.
Answer: A circadian clock, or circadian oscillator
Answered by: Don Weekes
1073 Border Side Road, Ottawa, ONT, Canada K2C 3P3
