Taking place every year on 8th November, World Ventil8 Day aims to raise awareness of the importance of ventilation as a crucial part of enabling health and wellbeing of people. It also seeks to recognise and celebrate the ventilation and indoor air quality community.
The theme for this year is “Breath Better, Live Better” and we have compiled a few highlights in celebration of the growing expertise within the University of Sheffield.
- Ventilation Guidance for Small Businesses
- Team Growth and Creating Healthier Air in Schools
- Student Success and Recognition
Ventilation Guidance for Small Businesses
Dr Abigail Hathway, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, has worked in collaboration with Sheffield City Council and other partners to develop a ventilation guidance manual for small businesses. The guidance was launched in October 2023 during a webinar hosted by Breathing City: Future Urban Ventilation Network. You can watch the webinar here for an in-depth introduction.
Through this work, staff at the Council can suggest simple actions to businesses across the city to improve their ventilation. We know small business are facing multiple challenges at present, so our aim is to better support them with easy to apply advice to improve the health outcomes of their staff and customers while conserving energy.
Councillor Joe Otten
Chair of the Waste and Street Scene Policy Committee at Sheffield City Council
The guidance was developed from research with small business owners to understand both technical and behavioural challenges to improving ventilation and as such has been designed for the use of Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) on the ground and in real-time.
Our research highlighted that public ventilation guidance was not useful to the small hospitality sector as they had particular challenges such as customer comfort, noise regulations, and atmosphere. Through engagement with businesses and Environmental Health Officers we designed this new guidance that is specifically targeted at this sector. The guidance provides both short and long term advice, and includes practical information such as cost and directs users to companies that can provide the systems they need.
Dr Abigail Hathway
Senior Lecturer at the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering
The guidance has been translated in nine languages so far, including Arabic, Chinese, Italian, Polish and Urdu. You can download the guidance here.
Team Growth and Creating Healthier Air in Schools
In September 2023, we welcomed Dr Carolanne Vouriot to the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, who joined us as a new Lecturer in Building Physics.
With her, Carolanne brings significant experience in improving air quality in schools, which in turn provides a healthier environment for pupils and staff around the UK. Her research focuses on fluid dynamics for the built environment, specifically looking at the relationship between natural ventilation and indoor air quality.
Air quality in schools is critical to make sure pupils can learn in a healthy environment. By better understanding how classrooms are ventilated, we can help reduce exposure to contaminants indoors and improve the health and wellbeing of pupils and staff. I am really excited to have joined the University of Sheffield where I have the opportunity to continue my research and help shape this growing area of expertise.
Dr Carolanne Vouriot
Lecturer in Building Physics at the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering
Carolanne is one of the key contributors to the development of the CoSchools website which includes a range of resources aimed at teachers and the wider school community about air quality in schools, including how it can be practically managed and how schools can get involved in air quality monitoring.
The CoSchools website was developed as part of the CO-TRACE project and has since been supported by the CLASS-ACT study and the Schools’ Air Quality Monitoring for Health and Education (SAMHE) project.
Become a part of our growing research team
We have a fantastic PhD opportunity supervised by Carolanne and Abigail on the topic of “Identifying the key factors of indoor air quality in UK classrooms: A data-driven study”. You can learn more here.
Student Success and Recognition
Earlier this year, students from our MEng Architectural Engineering course participated and won first place in two separate ventilation systems competitions.
Earlier this year, our third year MEng Architectural Engineering student Hasan Shwaish won first place at the Breathing City: Future Urban Ventilation Network “Healthy Building” Competition in the individual poster category. His poster was titled “Facade and Natural Ventilation Solution for a Basement Event Space”. Learn more about Hasan’s success here.
Following Hasan’s win, a second set of good news arrived for a team of our third year Architectural Engineering students. Lawrence, Hitaishi, Hasan, Zain, and Cian won first place in the international ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) Competition. Their task was to design the aircon heating, cooling and ventilation systems for a commercial lab in Cairo. The team has won $2,000 and has been invited to attend the ASHRAE 2024 Winter Conference in Chicago.
Our students’ achievements at national and international competitions are a great example of how the growing teaching and research excellence within the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering are helping shape the next generation of engineering graduates and professionals, and in particular the growing niche of Architectural Engineers who have a holistic understanding of building management with elements of civil, structural, and mechanical engineering as well as architectural design.