Exploring occupant behaviors and interactions in buildings with energy-efficient renovations: A hybrid virtual-physical experimental approach

Abstract

Energy-efficient renovations significantly affect how people use buildings, and these occupant behaviors, in turn, influence the effectiveness of building renovations. Exploring interactions between occupants and renovations is essential for implementing building energy-efficient renovation. However, physical experiments for this purpose require extensive setups in the laboratory to observe occupant behaviors under various renovations. Immersive virtual environment (IVE) experiments as an emerging method still need to adequately incorporate thermal stimuli, essential for studying occupant behaviors, building renovations, and related interactions.Therefore, this study proposes a novel approach that integrates virtual and physical environments in experiments to explore occupant behaviors and their interactions with building renovations. The interactive and immersive capabilities of IVE experiments allow for effective simulation of various renovations and occupant behaviors. By incorporating thermal stimuli from physical experiments, this approach overcomes previous limitations in studying thermal-related occupant behaviors. In a field study, an office building looking for renovation is used to explore occupant behaviors and their interactions with building renovations. It is found that energy-efficient renovation impacts personal heater use and door opening behaviors, but not clothing behaviors; such changes in heater use subsequently impact the energy performance of building renovation. In further analysis, obvious correlations are revealed between personal heater use and renovation scenarios, thermal perception, and times of day. The proposed approach is validated as a novel method to engage the occupants in achieving occupant-centric building energy-efficient transitions.