This is a 2 part answer:
1) No, not that I know of. You should put your apps in a space-less directory. Env doesn't like spaces in the path.
2) In your edit, when he puts his app in the public dir, why is build failing there? Can he do the getting started guide from there? Before running that build script, can he open app\documents\documents.html in a browser, and make sure there are no errors?