FMT407 TMA02 (Tutor-Marked Assignment Two) SUSS : July 2024 Presentation – Indoor Environmental Quality, Singapore

Question 1

COVID-19 has dramatically changed the understanding and practice to providing and maintaining healthy indoor environments. It has resulted in several guidelines and standards introducing new material for operation during “pandemic” modes.

(a) Discuss why airborne infection risk is higher in indoor environments compared to outdoors.

(b) Discuss, in Singapore’s context, the effectiveness and limitations in each of the following two strategies to reduce indoor airborne transmission risk:

(i) Opening windows and doors

(ii) Increasing ventilation rate

(c) Recommend two non-ventilation related strategy and explain how it would reduce airborne infection transmission in Singapore’s context. Exclude the administrative control of safe-distancing.

Question 2 

ABC Private Limited recently bought one floor of a 30 year old commercial office building. The floor plate is 30 m x 20 m. As Facilities Director of ABC, you have been asked to recommend energy efficient retrofits that do not compromise indoor environmental quality. The use is as an office premise with open-plan office areas. One of the longer walls has windows, while the other 3 walls are internal.

Your investigation revealed that:

• The air-handling system is a constant air volume system serving the floor; and
•  The lighting system is fluorescent lights

(a) Examine and explain why you would recommend that both these systems be changed.

(b) Your interior designer has been briefed to adopt a colour scheme that optimizes lighting utilization by choosing walls and ceiling that have the highest possible reflectance factors. The lighting consultant has proposed re-lamping with LED lights in a 15 x 8 layout. Each LED lamp emits 3000 lm.

(i) Evaluate if the proposal is acceptable for your requirement of 500 lux illuminance for your office furniture with a mounting height of 2.5 m, based on a maintenance factor of 0.95.

(ii) Discuss how you would integrate daylighting to further reduce energy consumption without compromising lighting illuminance. Illustrate with a sketch.