A Breath of Fresh Air: Launching the Wolfson INTERIORS Facility

Our prestigious panellists include Dr Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, The Ella Roberta Family Foundation, Professor Sir Stephen Holgate, Medical Research Council Clinical Professor of Immunopharmacology at the Faculty of Medicine, Southampton University and Professor Paul Monks, Director of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science.

INTERIORS is a globally unique facility that aims to further our understanding of indoor air quality. While most people are aware that we are exposed to air pollution outdoors, exposure to air pollutants indoors receives far less attention. Given that in developed countries like the UK, we spend most of our time indoors (two thirds in our homes), most of our exposure to air pollution happens indoors.

Here at the University of York, we aim to explore indoor air quality through this innovative, new indoor air testing facility, which consists of two three-bedroomed houses either side of an integrated air sampling laboratory. One house is built to typical UK building standards. The second is a proxy for Net Zero housing of the future, with a much lower ventilation rate than the standard build house, and a mechanical ventilation and heat recovery system.

INTERIORS provides a realistic testing facility for comparing indoor air quality in typical and energy efficient housing. We can explore the impact of emissions from building and furnishing materials, probe indoor air quality when we carry out activities like cooking and cleaning, but also understand interactions between these emissions in realistic housing.