The Significance of Indoor Thermal Comfort on Occupants’ Perception: In University Buildings in Auckland, New Zealand

Date
2024-05-06
Authors
Azzazy, S
Ghaffarianhoseini, A
GhaffarianHoseini, A
Naismith, N
Doan, DT
Hollander, JB
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Abstract

Any building creates a unique micro-environment. Educational buildings tend to offer a wide range of purposes, with more operational functions than most other buildings. This paper focuses on the occupant’s experiences of Indoor Thermal Comfort (TC) in educational buildings in Auckland, New Zealand. The TC can impact the occupant’s experience and thus affects student learning. This survey-based study examines users’ experience of the educational building’s comfort levels. The collected data from educational building users (n = 109) was analysed to evaluate the relationship between the perceived experience and the building’s function. The key findings of the survey were: (a) Identifying TC as the most significant factor that directly impacts the occupants’ mood or mental state, even when compared to more cognitive factors; (b) Identifying the lecture room as the most critical space for occupants’ thermal perception; and (c) the deviation between the preferred and experienced mental state, in the selected campus were relatively matching. This study contributes to the existing knowledge of educational buildings by quantifying the impact of TC on the occupant’s experience.

Description
Keywords
33 Built Environment and Design , 3301 Architecture , 3 Good Health and Well Being , 1201 Architecture , 1202 Building , Building & Construction , 3301 Architecture , 3302 Building , 4005 Civil engineering
Source
Building Research and Information, ISSN: 0961-3218 (Print); 1466-4321 (Online), Informa UK Limited, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), 1-21. doi: 10.1080/09613218.2024.2344072
Rights statement
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.