The purpose of this report was to find out if there were any differences in how the indoor environment was experienced in environmentally certified school buildings compared with similar conventional buildings. For that two certified school buildings, Vegaskolan in Vännäs and Hedlunda preschool in Umeå was compared with two conventional preschools in Umeå, Solbacken and Skattelden, in terms of how the indoor environment was experienced. This was done using a questionnaire and interviews. The results of the survey showed that Vegaskolan had the lowest percentage among the staff that was bothered by various environmental factors, while Hedlunda preschool had the largest share. Hedlunda also had the highest percentage amongst the staff with health problems. All four buildings surveyed, however, had smaller percentages who were disturbed by noise than preschools in general, and the environmentally certified buildings had an even lower percentage. If this is due to the certification is however difficult to say. Since there were more differences between the two certified buildings, it is difficult to draw general conclusions depending on the building type. Most of the differences showed in this study do not depend on the certification of the buildings, but of other causes. However the environmentally certified buildings are more complex than the conventional buildings, with more things that can go wrong. Therefore it requires more monitoring of the indoor environment after the building is put into use, as well as more information to operators and users in order to prevent adverse health effects, which seems to be the case at Hedlunda.

In relation to energy savings, the development of constructing energy-saving houses, which includes low-energy, passive and zero houses, started to be created. The diploma thesis helps readers to be better informed about energy-saving houses, their development during history and their main features. The last two chapters show the development of constructing energy-saving houses in the Czech Republic in graphs. They also show in which regions are these houses built the most and which construction system and way of using is preferred.

This project is a master’s thesis in Industrial Design that has been conducted in the spring of 2022 at Luleå University of Technology. The project is a cooperation with the company Neava and is about improving their online tool Design Studio. The goal of the project is to improve the online tool from an environmentally friendly perspective, i.e., how information is presented regarding material’s impact on the environment and how energy efficient the house will be when all the choices have been made.  Today, there are two different interfaces of Design Studio. One that is based on specific requirements from a customer, and another that is designed for sellers. None of these interfaces provides the user with information about how the materials are affecting the environment. Today it is important to think about the materials and energy efficiency when new houses are being built to create a sustainable future.  The work has been conducted by the process Design Thinking, which is an iterative process that is performed in five different phases: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. In the first phase, an understanding of the user was created, this was conducted through interviews and a survey. In the second phase, the user was identified, and user needs were established. In the third phase, different ideas and concepts were generated and then evaluated by users. In the fourth phase, a clickable prototype was created in the program Adobe XD. In the fifth phase, the prototype was tested on users and later improved based on the results.  The final result is a clickable prototype that informs the user about the available materials and how they are affecting the environment. The materials are categorized into three different groups: red, yellow, and green. If a material is in the red category, it indicates that the material is the worst for the environment. If a material is in the yellow category, it indicates that the material is okay for the environment. If a material is in the green category, it indicates that the material is the best for the environment. These three colors are connected to the environmental meter, the indicator shows the user how environmentally friendly materials the user has selected and how energy efficient the house will be.