Proposal for a small two-story living room house based on air-quality monitoring

The evolution and innovation in construction is based on extensive testing and validation, best performed on existing buildings, in order to assess their behavior in time. Occupants health and comfort issues are fundamental concerns of the society, which together with economy and environment make up the “sustainability triangle”. This becomes even more significant in the case of dwellings with reduced floor areas and built in high-density urban areas. The paper focuses on monitoring air quality parameters in an existing two-story living room house and proposes an architectural solution for improving comfort conditions. The 48 square meters house is a sustainable design, with low-embodied energy, high thermal performance and open-floor flexibility. In order to highlight the benefits of this open-space house, the study was focused on the comparison of two types of dwellings - a two - bedroom apartment with conventional subdivision and a one - bedroom house with double-height living room. In both cases the same indoor comfort parameters were measured: CO2 levels, humidity and temperature. The study is structured in two stages: the monitoring of the interior air quality of a two-story living room and the proposal of a similar house typology with improved comfort parameters. By analysing the complex monitoring data, the new architectural proposal keeps the environmental qualities of the existing house, with improved comfort benefits.