Towards a New Way of Capturing Occupant Well-being

Occupant well-being is undergoing a surge of interest in both the research community and industry, as the potential benefits of increased levels of well-being become better quantified and understood. Well-being science itself is also constantly evolving, moving from the traditional negative view of depression and mental disorders as markers of well-being, towards the more positive notion of flourishing, which is feeling good and functioning well. This paper first sets out the key elements of well-being, as found in psychology literature. Surveys and interviews are the main methods used to capture the well-being of individuals and populations, yet completion rates can be low, occupants distracted or irritated by requests to complete surveys and the data infrequent or irregular. Instead, cameras emerge as a potential economic way to gain information about occupants. Their comfort, health and well-being can be monitored with a high frequency, low intrusion and low cost through the use of facial emotions and movements. To this end, a small pilot study is carried out to examine the effectiveness and practicality of data capture by cameras. Data from a new naturally ventilated office building in Cambridge, United Kingdom, is inspected alongside more traditional well-being assessment techniques. It finds that occupants quickly forget that they are being monitored by the cameras and are very engaged with the research, keen to see if it can help improve their workspace. The results and experience from this pilot study form the basis of a more extensive programme of investigations that are described at the end of this paper. The aspiration is to develop this method so that it can be deployed as part of a wider toolkit to holistically capture high quality information about the comfort, health, and well-being levels of building occupants

A measurement model of occupant well-being for Malaysian office building

The condition of indoor environment is becoming progressively crucial because inadequate indoor conditions in office building can create risks to occupant well-being such as adverse health effects, productivity loss and higher rate of absenteeism. This has led to the development of various assessment tools dealing with this issue. However, most of existing assessment tools focused on the environmental protection and economic growth of building, while the importance of social aspect such as occupant well-being has been scarcely emphasized. This study aims to develop a measurement model of occupant well-being for Malaysian office building. Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is utilized to assign the weight of four criteria of occupant well-being and fifteen associated indoor environmental parameters for computing the measurement model of occupant well-being for Malaysian office building. The measurement model, which have been driven from an AHP weighting process found that Occupant Health scores the highest priority (35.5%) in computing the measurement model of occupant well-being for Malaysian office building, followed by Occupant Comfort, Occupant Safety and Occupant Adaptation respectively. This study makes a methodological contribution by developing a novel approach that is applicable to monitor the performance of indoor environment in Malaysian office building context to improve occupant well-being

The Potential of Smart Glazing for Occupant Well-Being and Reduced Energy Load in a Central-Mediterranean Climate

The ever-increasing aesthetically driven demand for fully glazed façades poses a design challenge; not least in controlling the cooling demand and occupant well-being of such buildings, especially in a central Mediterranean climate. This paper outlines the ever-important need to design for occupants and for designers to keep in mind, first and foremost, occupant well-being rather than aim solely to create energy-efficient buildings. The original objective of buildings was to provide shelter. Today however, the need for occupant comfort and its direct effect on productivity cannot be ignored. This need, therefore, ought to feature a central role in any building design. Studies show that occupant well-being is directly related to a range of environmental factors, particularly daylight distribution, glare and indoor air temperature. The use of external shading devices and more commonly, indoor blinds are often the adopted approaches to attempt to achieve indoor occupant comfort, often to the detriment of views. Adaptive facades seek to address the need to somehow strike a balance between occupant comfort and energy efficiency. These facades range from exterior and interior shading devices with varying control strategies, to the different forms of adaptive/switchable glazing technologies intended to control the visual light transmittance and solar radiation transmitted into a building’s interior. In the opinion of the authors, electrochromic glazing has a great potential in a cooling-dominated central Mediterranean climate, to achieve a compromise between occupant visual and thermal comfort whilst retaining unobstructed outdoor views at all times. Research shows that the potential benefits of electrochromic glazing have not yet been studied enough in real-life scenarios,and this paper further introduces the objectives for field study within two identical offices, having a South-South-East orientation, located in a central Mediterranean climate

The potential of smart glazing for occupant well-being and reduced energy load in a Central-Mediterranean climate

The ever-increasing aesthetically driven demand for fully glazed façades poses a design challenge; not least in controlling the cooling demand and occupant well-being of such buildings, especially in a central Mediterranean climate. This paper outlines the ever-important need to design for occupants and for designers to keep in mind, first and foremost, occupant well-being rather than aim solely to create energyefficient buildings. The original objective of buildings was to provide shelter. Today however, the need for occupant comfort and its direct effect on productivity cannot be ignored. This need, therefore, ought to feature a central role in any building design. Studies show that occupant well-being is directly related to a range of environmental factors, particularly daylight distribution, glare and indoor air temperature. The use of external shading devices and more commonly, indoor blinds are often the adopted approaches to attempt to achieve indoor occupant comfort, often to the detriment of views. Adaptive facades seek to address the need to somehow strike a balance between occupant comfort and energy efficiency. These facades range from exterior and interior shading devices with varying control strategies, to the different forms of adaptive/switchable glazing technologies intended to control the visual light transmittance and solar radiation transmitted into a building's interior. In the opinion of the authors, electrochromic glazing has a great potential in a cooling-dominated central Mediterranean climate, to achieve a compromise between occupant visual and thermal comfort whilst retaining unobstructed outdoor views at all times. Research shows that the potential benefits of electrochromic glazing have not yet been studied enough in real-life scenarios, and this paper further introduces the objectives for a field study within two identical offices, having a South-South-East orientation, located in a central Mediterranean climate.peer-reviewe

Impact of indoor environmental quality on occupant well-being and comfort : a review of the literature

Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and its effect on occupant well-being and comfort is an important area of study. This paper presents a state of the art study through extensive review of the literature, by establishing links between IEQs and occupant well-being and comfort. A range of issues such as sick building syndrome, indoor air quality thermal comfort, visual comfort and acoustic comfort are considered in this paper. The complexity of the relationship between occupant comfort and well-being parameters with IEQ are further exacerbated due to relationships that these parameters have with each other as well. Based on the review of literature in these areas it is established that design of buildings needs to consider occupant well-being parameters right at the beginning. Some good practices in all these different areas have also been highlighted and documented in this paper. The knowledge established as part of this paper would be helpful for researchers, designer, engineers and facilities maintenance engineers. This paper will also be of great benefit to researchers who endeavour to undertake research in this area and could act as a good starting point for them. Keywords Occupant well-being; Indoor environment quality; Occupant comfort; Offices; Green building

Linking human-building interactions in shared offices with personality traits

Occupant behavior influences office building energy performance. The level of human-building interactions (HBIs) in shared offices strongly influences building energy use and occupant well-being. This study explored the link between occupant personality types and their behaviors of sharing energy and environment control systems and interactions with their colleagues. Inspired by the Five-Factor Model (FFM), we classified HBI behaviors into four dimensions: willingness to share control, knowledge of control, group decision behavior, and adaptive strategies. These four variables can be mapped to the four personality traits proposed by the FFM: agreeableness, openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness. Our cluster analysis identified six behavioral patterns: average (17.7%), reserved (15.3%), environmentally friendly (16.6%), role model (24.2%), self-centered (17.2%), and mechanist (9.0%). We further applied association rules, a widely utilized machine learning technique, to discover how demographics, building-related contextual factors, and perception-attitudinal factors influence HBI behaviors. Country, control feature accessibility, and group dynamics were found to be the three most influential factors that determine occupants’ HBI behaviors. The study provides insights about building design and operation, as well as policy to promote socially and environmentally desirable HBI behaviors in a shared office environment

Sustainability Assessment Methods for the Gulf Region

This paper describes the development of a sustainability assessment framework designed to be used in the Gulf Region, which is an area which has experienced large scale building development and also a region in which sustainability assessment is not yet widely used. The complexity and time resources needed to apply existing methods act as a deterrent to active use. Three well-known methods available at the time of the study were investigated in some detail. These were: BREEAM Gulf; Green Building Council LEED; and Estidama Pearl. Cross comparisons of the factors involved in each method were carried out on several levels including: theoretical comparison; practical development and usability; compliance with regulations and standards; and ability to achieve synchronization. A considerable degree of compatibility was found to exist between the methods, particularly if focused on key criteria. As a result a new and specific framework was developed which grouped 24 indicators under five principal headings: site/location, biodiversity and accessibility; energy; water; occupant well-being; and resources and wastes. This new framework was then evaluated by testing with practitioners resulting in confirmation of 20 out of the 24 indicators, and identification of suitable benchmarks

Where Wellness Begins

A public need for improved health has called into question the manner in which one\u27s built environment has the ability to affect a person\u27s health and well-being. Recent studies have revealed a correlation between health and residence, suggesting that the built environment has a significant influence on occupant health and well-being. As a result of such studies, Delos Living, a well-building consulting firm, has proposed a set of deign standards that can be used to promote occupant health. The problem with such methods is that there are processes of certification relying primarily on post-deign evaluations. This thesis seeks to align itself with Delos\u27 WELL Building Standards through the development of a schematic deign process that can be use alongside the WELL Building Standards in order to promote wellness during the initial stages of design. This propose schematic deign process utilizes nine elements of health, which address the physical, social, and mental components of occupant well-being. These elements can be understood as three categories of interrelated elements with associated design principles: 1) Daylight, fresh air, and vegetation 2) Nutrition, physical activity, and community 3) Medical need, alertness, and occupant satisfaction Each Design should focus on the elements that are most important to site-specific demographic needs. As such, this thesis contends that if occupant health is placed at the forefront of deign, utilizing a deign approach that selects and addresses two or three of the nice proposed elements of health based on demographic mapping in a spatial/human-centric manner during the initial stages of design, the resulting architecture will promote occupant well-being. This thesis focuses primarily on the visual and non-visual effects of daylighting by juxtaposing the benefits of daylighting on occupant health with architectural design strategies. The proposed process of deign is then utilized in conjunction with these bestfound design strategies for daylighting to redesign Blodgett Middle School to that of the original structure and an exemplary WELL certified building, the CBRE Headquarters in LA, through daylight simulations prepared using DIVA for Rhino