Ikhlas Oqlah Rabab’ah
Building Performance; Human Behavior; Biophilia; Biophilic Design; Computational Fluid Dynamics; Natural Ventilation; Personalized Ventilation; Natural Air Flow; Human Health; Wellness; Well-Being.
Ikhlas O. Rabab’ah is a second-year Ph.D. student in Architecture and Design Research at Virginia Tech University, College of Architecture, Art, and Design. She is from Jordan, where she lived and studied before attending Virginia Tech. Ikhlas earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture in 2018 from the Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) and graduated with a rank of first among her batch. For her achievement, JUST gave her the scholarship to continue her postgraduate studies. She earned her Master’s Degree directly in 2020 from JUST, and her research area was Sustainability and Building Performance. Ikhlas searched about evaluating the efficiency of using green roofs in her region, and her thesis was titled “Sustainable Assessment of Using Green Roof in Hot-Arid Areas _ Residential Buildings in Jordan”. She published a paper from her thesis in the Journal of Building Engineering under the same title. Ikhlas worked in the College of Architecture and Design in JUST for three years since 2018. Then she attended Virginia Tech in 2021 to study Ph.D. and shifted her research area a little bit to focus on Building Performance and Human Behavior. Her research will focus on enhancing the building performance to positively affect the user’s health, wellness, and well-being.
A Prototypical Personalized Biophilic Airflow System for Modular Workstations.
The ultimate goal of this research is to promote better health and well-being for occupants in built environments. This goal will be achieved through a biophilic approach that seeks to incorporate natural air movement in environments such as work or learning. It is hypothesized that through the development of a prototypical modular workstation that integrates an airflow system that simulates natural air movement, satisfaction with indoor environments will be improved. The research is envisioned in two phases: 1) development of the prototypical system, and 2) physiological and psychological testing of the system to demonstrate its efficacy in improving the health and well-being of occupants.Phase one: Development of a prototypical system
Phase one of this research seeks to design and develop a prototypical biophilic airflow system for a modular workstation. Phase one will be achieved through five steps:
- determine the characteristics of “natural” airflow.
- determine the optimum configuration and control strategy of a mechanical forced airflow mechanism.
- incorporate the mechanical forced airflow mechanism into a modular workstation.
- determine the optimum air distribution of a mechanical forced airflow mechanism.
- determine the correlation between the resulting airflow pattern to the desired “natural” airflow characteristics as determined in step (1).
Phase Two: Performance Assessment of the Prototypical System
In Phase Two the performance of the prototypical system will be evaluated to determine the extent that the system improves health, well-being, and occupant satisfaction. In phase two an experimental approach will be undertaken where two alternative work environments will be set up, one with the prototypical system and the other without. A large sample of occupants will be randomly assigned for exposure to the airflow conditions for the two work environments. Both physiological and psychological responses to the two conditions will be collected and recorded. The data will be statistically analyzed to test the hypothesis that health, wellness, and satisfaction indicators will be significantly higher for the prototypical system.
View publications on Ikhlas's Researchgate profile.