Browsing by Author "Al-Ramadani, Hassan"

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Acoustics in Green Buildings
(2023-01-23) Al-Ramadani, Hassan
Sähkötekniikan korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
The past two decades have witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of green buildings in the construction industry; green buildings are certified through rating schemes, such as BREEAM and LEED, which consider acoustics part of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ). Although some studies have examined IEQ, there has been no research conducted in this field in Finland. This thesis compares acoustics criteria in BREEAM and LEED with Finnish national regulation and determines the challenges that acoustics consultants face in green buildings dealing with various design aspects. Additionally, the thesis evaluates the acoustics comfort of green office buildings by conducting a Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) survey for the acoustics comfort on seven office green buildings and two office conventional buildings in Finland. Based on a literature review of earlier research, an online and paper-form survey was distributed to users of green buildings and conventional buildings. In addition, acoustics measurements were collected from the investigated buildings. An analysis of the responses demonstrated that users' satisfaction with acoustics comfort fluctuated within building categories regardless of the building being either green or conventional and it acquiring or missing acoustics credits. The results correspond to previous studies’ claims that acoustics comfort in green and conventional buildings is approximately the same. The survey indicates that personal and contextual variables influence acoustics comfort inside buildings (such as age, gender, building tenure, work desk conditions, and visual privacy); specifically, gender and visual privacy significantly impact acoustics comfort. Another finding is that acoustics measurements do not correlate with the survey results. This demonstrates that there are other aspects (such as personal and contextual variables) to consider for acoustics performance together with specified acoustics parameters by authorities or organizations.