Research has shown that staying indoors is not good for our health. People spend more and more of their time indoors. Therefore, providing a healthy and comfortable indoor environment is very important. The SenseLab will contribute to the understanding of and coping with the indoor environment. Students, teachers, researchers, but also the general public are able to experience and test different combinations of environmental conditions. The SenseLab is built around the four indoor environmental quality (IEQ) factors (air, thermal, light and acoustical quality), including: the experience room, for integrated perception of IEQ, so studying all factors together. And four test chambers, open to the public, where you can take a sniff of materials, feel heat and cold, see how light influences perception and experience how acoustics can be improved. A genuine playground for your senses.@en

A study was performed to investigate the indoor air quality of ventilation ducts, cut or milled directly in the outside thermal insulation of houses as part of a renovation concept. Measurements and subjective evaluations were conducted to study the impact of the polystyrene ventilation ducts, compared to steel, PVC and wooden ducts, on the air quality. Surface roughness of the inside of the polystyrene ducts seems to influence both the measured and the perceived air quality.@en

To facilitate a multi-disciplinary education and research program, the ‘Sense lab’, a playground for the senses, is being built, in which single and combinations of environmental conditions can be both experienced and tested.@en

There is a need for making people aware of the importance of indoor environmental quality for their health and comfort. A simple guide to educate yourself was created, together with a questionnaire to make you aware of your own indoor environment. The questionnaire was distributed among four groups of students from three different universities in The Netherlands. The procedure and the first descriptive results are presented. Further analysis will be performed for educational and scientific purposes.@en