Level 3 BTEC Subsidiary Diploma in Construction & the Built Environment
Unit 4: Science and Materials in Construction and the Built Environment
Assignment 1 Title: Human Comfort within building
Student: Clare Murray 13A Candidate number: 1246
Teacher: Mrs Keyes
Scenario:
A property developer is converting an old railway station into retail and office accommodation. The client is keen to make the working environment for the staff as comfortable as possible. As a consultant, explain how this can be done by addressing the relevant grading criteria.
Introduction
To begin this assignment, I need to begin by having a look at an old railway station….
As you can see this railway station is no longer modern and it is derelict. I hope
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Unless our surroundings are at an appropriate temperature, we are not going to be comfortable. If uncomfortable this will mean that the clients work will not be done to their full potential.
There are 6 important factors in relation to thermal comfort;
• Activity level
(I.e. the amount of physical work done)
We produce excess heat all the time. This is because; heat is a by-product of the metabolic process meaning that heat must be released from our body to keep the body temperature right at 37oC. We loose most body heat by; Convection, radiation, conduction, evaporation of sweat. When sweat evaporates from the surface of our skin, it extracts heat from the skin and cools us. This cooling effect is very powerful and one of the main ways we lose heat from our bodies. It is not the sweating that cools us but the evaporation.
In a railway station there would be a lot more physical activity going in comparison to an office. That is, in a railway station there would be a lot more people in this building -working, walking, waiting, eating, etc. That is, in comparison to an office where the activity level would be lower. This is because our clients are in a building situated in separate offices with less people in that building. That is, the activity level in an office is