Improving Indoor Climate in Historic Office Buildings

We have moved into a new office in a listed building - without ventilation. How do we ensure that we have a good indoor climate during the day?

As we entered the year 2020, ÅBN also moved its office from Futurebox to a listed building on Holmen in København K. The building dates from 1889 and was part of Denmark's largest workplace for almost 200 years.

Holmen was a military area where the navy's employees and families lived. Our new office is called Beklädingsmagasinet – it was here that fleet material was manufactured, repaired, maintained and stored.

Navy soldiers stood in long lines as they waited to be issued their materials. The long queues made them impatient and while they waited they therefore began to scratch their name, cause and ship name in the yellow bricks. The scratched names can be seen to this day.

But…

The building, which is over 100 years old, is listed, and therefore does not have a ventilation system installed to exchange the air in the office for a better indoor climate.

As indoor climate ambassadors Kristoffer and I have gradually become, it is important for us to have a good indoor climate when we sit and work.

The CLOUD naturally helps us with that.

When the SKYEN lights up blue, the indoor climate in the room is good, and when the SKYEN changes to red, the indoor climate in the office is bad. The red color is a sign that we need to get air out and create drafts.

Offices are structured differently and therefore it can be difficult to find out how to ventilate best, how much it is possible to ventilate or how to change the air in the office. Inside the listed building, glass boxes have been set up which house the offices. They are tightly built and not much air leaks out. That's why the CLOUD is mainly red - but that doesn't matter. The important thing is to remember to ventilate during the day and use it as a reminder.

Like many of SKYEN's users, we have created our own ventilation culture around SKYEN in the office.

We therefore also use the CLOUD as a signal to take a break once in a while - to air out while we go for a walk, get something to drink or sit down on a sofa and work. This means that we can have a varied working day and keep our performance and focus up, only because we focus on the indoor climate.

It is not only when you do not have ventilation systems in listed buildings that the indoor climate is bad, many workplaces have ventilation systems but still use SKYEN to check whether the ventilation system ventilates sufficiently - but especially also in meeting rooms. When a meeting room is full of people, the ventilation can't keep up, so opening a window can help - that's what we at ÅBN help with.