Notes from the Field 2009

Wow I haven't written for awhile, but I blogged while i was there so i'll finish posting my blogs that I wrote ^_^ Can't believe summer is over, it went too fast and I miss Japan everyday.

The Chemiless Town Project. Before people begin to live in the Chemiless Town, the researchers are analyzing the environment of the four different houses; this is done by taking air samples in two different rooms within each house, a classroom setting, and one sample outside one of the houses. Two different air-sampling machines are set up in each sampling spot. One machine samples for 11 different aldehydes and another samples for 30 different VOCs (volatile organic compounds).

Before they begin to sample they come early in the morning and open the windows for 1 hour to exchange all of the air in the rooms. They return to close all the windows and then turn on the sampling machines, which take 5 hours to warm up. Around 3pm the sampling tubes are placed in the machines and the air samplers are turned on. They will collect for 24 hours. Photo-documentation is made after each sampler is setup. After 24 hours all of the sampler tubes are collected and are then sent to a lab for analysis.

The companies that designed the houses were told to construct houses that are natural and healthy to live in; each house has its own unique design depending on each company's idea of what they think a "healthy environment" means. The people who will stay in the houses are people who suffer from Sick Building Syndrome, which is a set of conditions that is caused from prolonged exposure to certain VOCs. People who experience Sick Building Syndrome have one or more of the following symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, nausea, a soar throat, and asthma. In the future, when people stay in the houses, they will stay for 1 night or up to week. To make sure that the house does not make their symptoms worse, the participants will be taken to one of the houses earlier in the day to stay for an hour.

This experimental town has been constructed under the idea of "Environmental Preventative Medicine" where they will hope to improve the health of future generations. When participants stay in the Chemiless Town, the hope is that their symptoms improve or disappear. The research hopes to find a way of building indoor environments, which are healthier to live and work within as well as a solution to prevent the occurrence of Sick Building Syndrome.