The Impact of Indoor Thermal Environments on the User’s State of Mind in Educational Buildings in Auckland, New Zealand

Abstract

The impact of the built environment on the human state of mind is often neglected despite the ever-increasing demand for urbanized life and fast-constructed building. Nevertheless, the average time spent inside the built environment is 90% of the average lifespan. This significant amount of time forms an essential relationship between our occupants and the surroundings that justify our behaviour and impact our long-term psychological wellbeing.

This research aims to: Measure the impact of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) and Thermal Comfort (TC) on the momentary state of mind (mood) of the participants in the educational building’s using brain mapping Electro-Encephalography (EEG).

The impact of spaces on user’s state of mind can be measured and analysed by the suitable brain mapping technology, i.e., EEG. This measurement of the impact on the human brain, even being momentary, will indicate the mental state (excited, engaged, relaxed, etc.) of the users while occupying certain space, in various indoor thermal settings. Hence it can be compared with the predetermined building function.

The study depends on user’s surveys and experts’ in-depth interviews, to set up the design function of the selected spaces (i.e., engagement, focus, excitement, etc.). This mixed method approach is to guarantee that user expectation, and the stakeholder’s purpose, of educational buildings are consistent and benchmarked for the experiment. The results of the qualitative and quantitative data collection, after analysis, were used to set up the experiment stage. Based on these results we have identified the lecture room to be the most critical for the overall occupant’s thermal perception and identified the occupant preferred state of mind that fulfil the building purpose.

The subjects of the experiments represent a diversity of all the possible users of the educational buildings and occupied the allocated spaces, wearing EEG scanner to measure the actual brain function recorded in deferent indoor thermal environments, measured by the Predictive Mean Vote (PMV). The study depends on two experiments to identify the impact of two parameters, out of four, of IEQ (Indoor Air Quality and Indoor Thermal Comfort). The results, of each experiment, analysed against the predetermined design purpose.

This research provides important insights into the neurological mechanisms underlying thermal comfort, which have ramifications for the design and management of indoor environments in educational buildings. We can better understand how environmental factors such as temperature and ventilation affect the occupants’ brain and ultimately impact the occupant's state of mind by using EEG to investigate the neural correlates of thermal comfort.

The research showed, in all stages, the significance of ITC on the occupant performance in educational building. The measured brain waves indicated that the occupant’s performance is significantly improved in PMV range between 0 to 0.6 and during open ventilation. This research results are critical to optimise the thermal performance in educational building and creating a better indoor environment for the building users.