Prospect of Level of thermal Comfort within Public Office Buildings in Addis Ababa (Case of Prototype Government Office Buildings)

Abstract

Office buildings are where individuals spend 7.7 hour to 9hr of their time daily, and it should be comfortable under all circumstances. This place could be comfortable for the occupants in every in every condition. Comfort ability or uncomfortable work behavior of workplace have significant influence on the productivity of worker and health of employee. Most government sector offices in Ethiopia built with similar prototype and standard in different site and orientation. This duplicating the similar office building affects the thermal and visual comfort as well as productivity of occupants. This study assesses the thermal comfort level of selected Addis Ababa government standard and prototype buildings. The study sample sampled three site similar buildings and two from each site which found in different orientations and has different characteristics. The study based on field survey measurement of five sequent days in the warmest month of January 2021. Also it includes the literature review and use of secondary data. The occupants asked about the thermal level, their preference through the primary data collection. The major indoor thermal comfort variables air temperature and relative humidity in each case offices measured in these five days to compare and analyze with the standard office operational temperature. The data obtained and analyzed by the supporting software like SPSS, ArchiCAD, Revit and excel. The result from data analysis indicated that almost half of the people asked are not comfortable with the thermal environment. The temperature of some selected case buildings are at the expected and standard level while others are exceeding the level due to characteristics in each office. These factors include the green infrastructure integration, orientation, number of occupants, the thermal regulation measures in each office. In this study the buildings those with original design, similar with original design orientation and engaged in maintenance have good thermal comfort when compared to others.