Well-being Of Occupants Research Articles (Page 1)

How much nature do we need? An exploration of dose-response relationships between indoor nature dose and building occupant well-being

While noncongregate shelters are an increasingly common intervention for homelessness, their effect on residents' psychological well-being is not well understood. This study evaluated the effect of a low-barrier, noncongregate shelter on the well-being of individuals experiencing homelessness in a small Northern California city in 2023. Focusing on 5 key areas of well-being-sleep quality, sense of community, sense of control, generalized anxiety, and psychological safety-this study surveyed 106 (of 170) shelter residents 9 months after the opening of the shelter. A retrospective pretest-posttest design and generalized linear models permitted an analysis of changes in well-being after previously unsheltered individuals moved into the noncongregate shelter, as well as within-subjects' differences by sex, age, and duration at the shelter. All indicators of well-being with the exception of sense of control showed significant improvement after the shelter move-in. Specifically, on a 5-point Likert scale, with higher scores meaning a more positive outcome, mean sleep quality improved from 2.6 to 4.0 (P < .001), sense of community from 3.1 to 3.4 (P = .01), and psychological safety from 3.1 to 3.5 (P < .001); on a 4-point Likert scale, with higher scores indicating higher levels of anxiety, anxiety decreased from 2.7 to 2.1 (P < .001). Additionally, interactive analyses indicated that changes in well-being differed depending on an individual's sex, age, and duration at the shelter. While this study demonstrates improvements in well-being relative to individuals living unsheltered, future research should use comparative designs to assess long-term housing stability outcomes for individuals in temporary shelters compared with those who remain unsheltered or in secure permanent supportive housing.

Balconies are widely recognized for enhancing urban livability, making them attractive elements to incorporate in building renovation projects. However, their impact on energy performance remains insufficiently studied, particularly in temperate climates, like the Mediterranean, where both heating and cooling demands must be considered. This article evaluates the energy impacts of integrating open balconies into housing retrofits on the space conditioning demand of dwellings through spatialized analysis at the urban block scale. Focusing on Barcelona’s Eixample district, a parametric Urban Building Energy Modeling (UBEM) was employed to assess how balcony design interacts with urban morphology (orientation, obstructions), building features (window-to-wall ratio, WWR), and balcony length. Results reveal a seasonal trade-off at the block scale: balconies increase heating demand (0.1–1.6 kWh/m2·yr) by reducing winter solar gain but decrease cooling demand (0.1–3.8 kWh/m2·yr) through summer shading. Net effects vary by unit position, with south-facing and moderately glazed dwellings benefiting the most. Deeper balconies (1.5–2 m) amplify both effects, while optimal depth depends on the window-to-wall ratio. Under future climates, retrofits combining insulation and balconies mitigate rising cooling demands more effectively than insulation alone, reducing block-level demand by up to 16%. Although balconies alone show modest energy savings at the block scale, they enhance localized thermal resilience. The study highlights the need for integrated retrofit strategies that balance thermal insulation with solar protection to address both current and future energy challenges while enhancing occupant well-being.

Worldwide, the population of aging adults is growing and recent studies in Canada have shown that most older adults would prefer to remain in their own homes as they age. Since indoor environmental quality directly affects the health and well-being of a building occupant, healthy aging in place will depend on the quality of the indoor conditions. Outdoor noise transmitted indoors is not only a cause of annoyance but is also a cause of sleep disturbance and a risk factor for the development of health issues. This paper reports preliminary results concerning outdoor-to-indoor noise perception in the homes of older adults in Canada, based on an online survey completed by over 400 participants from across the country, with 266 valid responses related to sleep and noise. Data related to sleep and noise were investigated and preliminary results showed that hearing noise at specific periods had an effect on sleep. Also, correlations between sleep and noise annoyance ratings were found. These results, together with future field measurements and laboratory studies, may support the development of guidelines for building construction and retrofit that include sound insulation performance of façades, ensuring that aging adults are protected against detrimental effects of outdoor noise sources.

This paper investigates how architectural theories from the Bauhaus in the 1920s have the opportunity to influence approaches to wellbeing through the built environment today. Through a literature review, the study examines work and writings by primarily Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy and German architect Siegfried Ebeling, as well as their contemporaries and predecessors at the Bauhaus. The research identifies a gap in architectural history where past architectural theories and practices have been underexplored in relation to wellbeing, particularly in early modernist discourse. By analyzing Moholy-Nagy and Ebeling writings, this paper reveals how their work prefigures and expands contemporary concerns in wellness design. The key finding is: in the examined works there are clear links between metaphysical thinking, environmental conditions, construction innovation and wellbeing. This study contributes to architectural discourses by: firstly proposing that metaphysically informed design thinking can offer valuable insights for architectural practices aiming to enhance occupant wellbeing; secondly, recontextualizing historical ideas within present-day design challenges, and thirdly offering future research directions for developing understandings of wellbeing in relation to architecture.

Achieving optimal daylighting in buildings necessitates complex and expensive control systems. This research addresses this challenge by proposing a simple and more practical solution: a parametric louver system based on rotating slats controlled by stepper motors, powered by an Integrated Circuit platform (Arduino board), which can translate the digital figures (the rotation angles) to a physical action. The system automatically adjusts the slats in accordance with solar altitudes and reflects them to specific targets over the ceiling. This ensures a uniform and comfortable distribution of daylight throughout a room. This system was developed using Grasshopper as the parametric software, with future control planned via a user-friendly mobile app through a preliminary prototype. This daylighting system prioritises human visual comfort while targeting a significant 53% reduction in electrical lighting energy consumption. The system aims to enhance occupant well-being to significantly increase energy savings, making it a compelling solution for sustainable building design.

Achieving better energy efficiency requires dwellings to face a delicate equilibrium, balancing thermal comfort and indoor air quality. This longitudinal study uses crowdsourced data collected over a year from 14 residences in Santiago, Chile, to examine the relationship between these two parameters. Results highlight considerable variability in PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations and thermal comfort across the sample. PM concentrations are below the global medians, but the maximum values exceed them. Chronic harm from exposure to these concentrations is 1271 and 683 (DALYs/105 person/year) for PM2.5 and PM10, respectively. Moreover, the annual WHO 2021 recommendations are not met, and the daily mean is met by 25% and 72% of the measured days for PM2.5 and PM10, respectively. Determinants of these variations may include geographical location and construction materials, which will be included in future research. The indoor environment does not provide the hygrothermal conditions to achieve acceptable thermal comfort, which is only reached during 56% of the measured time. This research advocates for a regulatory approach to optimise energy efficiency and prioritise occupant well-being. Insights from this study contribute to a better understanding of competing objectives in residential architecture, informing strategic decision-making and interventions.

Introduction: Climate change, heat waves, greenhouse gas emissions, and global warming have become a never-ending cycle, contributing to environmental degradation and causing discomfort to humans and other living beings. To address climate change, research on the thermal comfort of buildings has been conducted and developed since 1946, using both passive and active thermal comfort strategies. To understand the evolution of thermal comfort, this paper aims to establish the progression and principles of thermal comfort research. Methodology: A narrative literature review method was adopted to analyze the progress of thermal comfort research. A total of 122 selected articles examined concepts, models, architectural perspectives, standards, and policies related to thermal comfort. Results and discussion: Thermal comfort has evolved from the invention of air conditioning to the application of passive thermal comfort strategies in buildings. Thermal comfort research has consistently identified six key parameters that have improved our understanding of indoor thermal comfort. Moreover, the use of innovative technologies in thermal comfort studies can enhance occupant health and well-being. An interdisciplinary approach to thermal comfort research is therefore necessary. Recommendations: This study outlines the sequence of thermal comfort research, including innovations in models, simulation, prediction, and emerging challenges. As such, it will help future researchers, developers, and other stakeholders in the built environment to fill gaps and connect past findings with future directions.

The study investigates the thermal efficiency and indoor comfort of green façades in affordable housing units located in Santa Maria, southern Brazil. Over the course of one year, six housing units were monitored to evaluate summer performance, with five units incorporating green façades and one serving as a control unit without vegetation. Data collection focused on climate parameters, such as air temperature and relative humidity, recorded every 15 minutes using thermal sensors and thermographic imaging. The results reveal that the green façades significantly enhanced thermal performance by reducing surface temperatures and improving indoor thermal comfort. The maximum observed temperature difference between units with green façades and the control unit reached 12.6 C. The thermographic images visually validated these findings, visually confirming the cooling effect. Physiologically Equivalent Temperature (PET) analyses further demonstrated increased thermal comfort in green façade units, with the highest PET difference of 6.5 ºC recorded on February 24. The findings advocate for broader adoption of green façades in social housing in any geographic location, emphasizing their role in addressing environmental challenges, improving energy efficiency, and promoting occupant well-being in urban settings.

Indoor air quality (IAQ) is a critical determinant of health, comfort, and productivity, and is strongly connected to building energy demand due to the role of ventilation and air treatment in HVAC systems. This review examines recent applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) for IAQ prediction across residential, educational, commercial, and public environments. Approaches are categorized by predicted parameters, forecasting horizons, facility types, and model architectures. Particular focus is given to pollutants such as CO2, PM2.5, PM10, VOCs, and formaldehyde. Deep learning methods, especially the LSTM and GRU networks, achieve superior accuracy in short-term forecasting, while hybrid models integrating physical simulations or optimization algorithms enhance robustness and generalizability. Importantly, predictive IAQ frameworks are increasingly applied to support demand-controlled ventilation, adaptive HVAC strategies, and retrofit planning, contributing directly to reduced energy consumption and carbon emissions without compromising indoor environmental quality. Remaining challenges include data heterogeneity, sensor reliability, and limited interpretability of deep models. This review highlights the need for scalable, explainable, and energy-aware IAQ prediction systems that align health-oriented indoor management with energy efficiency and sustainability goals. Such approaches directly contribute to policy priorities, including the EU Green Deal and Fit for 55 package, advancing both occupant well-being and low-carbon smart building operation.

Housing has an impact on occupants' health and well-being in addition to providing physical shelter. This study examined the effects of residential design characteristics on indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and occupant health in Nigeria. Significant outcomes were seen when environmental measurements and health questionnaires were combined in data collection from 236 houses. Findings show enhanced ventilation via window design and sustainable materials can alleviate respiratory and tiredness symptoms. The study concludes with a call for health-focused architectural interventions in house design and recommendations centre on design principles customised for tropical regions to foster healthy indoor environments.

Climate change and extreme weather compromise building energy performance and Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems, impacting occupant wellbeing and health. However, occupants can naturally adapt through their behaviors, representing a form of intrinsic resilience that enhances the building’s capacity to handle thermal extremes. This study explores the role of occupants in buildings’ thermal resilience; it begins by investigating passive and active strategies commonly discussed in the literature, then analyzes whether occupants are treated as passive or active subjects with adaptive capacity. Four databases were consulted, and 22 peer-reviewed papers were screened based on the following criteria: a clear definition of thermal resilient buildings, inclusion of at least one quantitative method for assessing whole-building resilience, original scientific contribution, and a focus on whole-building rather than component-level resilience. Analysis highlights that the intrinsic thermal resilience of occupants has received limited importance in current discourse on building resilience; in most studies (12 out of 22), occupants are treated as passive thermal loads, with no adaptive behavior considered. This study also suggests examining strategies traditionally used in energy efficiency and indoor comfort as a preliminary approach to encourage adaptive behaviors, and, above all, opens a discussion on integrating occupant behavior into resilience strategies.

The optimization of energy consumption in smart buildings through adaptive control systems represents a critical challenge in achieving sustainable building operations while maintaining occupant comfort and satisfaction. This research presents a comprehensive Reinforcement Learning (RL) framework designed to intelligently control smart building energy systems by dynamically adapting to real-time occupant behavior patterns and changing weather conditions. The proposed system employs Deep Q-Networks enhanced with attention mechanisms to learn optimal control strategies for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems, lighting, shading, ventilation, and load management while continuously monitoring occupancy levels, behavioral preferences, and environmental parameters. Through extensive empirical evaluation conducted across 89 commercial and residential buildings over an 18-month period, our findings demonstrate substantial improvements in energy efficiency with average reductions of 27.3% in total energy consumption and 31.8% in peak demand loads compared to conventional Building Management Systems (BMS). The adaptive framework achieved remarkable performance in maintaining thermal comfort within acceptable ranges for 96.7% of occupied hours while reducing energy costs by 24.1% on average. Furthermore, the system demonstrated exceptional responsiveness to weather variations with prediction accuracy of 94.2% for load forecasting and adaptation times averaging 8.3 minutes for significant environmental changes. These results establish RL-based approaches as highly effective solutions for next-generation smart building energy management, contributing significantly to sustainable building operations and occupant well-being.

Understanding cross-modal environmental perception is essential for improving occupant well-being and human-centric building design. This paper presents an open-access, multi-site database developed under the IEA-EBC Annex 79 project to test the Hue-Heat Hypothesis (HHH), which hypothesizes that light hue may influence thermal perceptions. The database comprises 543 experimental rounds conducted in eight laboratories across six countries and diverse climate zones, following a shared, rigorously designed protocol. During summer and winter campaigns, participants were exposed to controlled thermal environments and counterbalanced lighting conditions (neutral, reddish, bluish). The database includes detailed metadata on environmental variables, physiological measurements (i.e., heart rate and skin temperature), and self-reported perceptual responses. It also provides standardized technical documentation for each test room, including the detailed experimental protocol and translated survey instruments. All materials are available on the Open Science Framework under the “Multi-site Hue-Heat-Hypothesis Testing” repository. This resource supports research into multi-domain human comfort, enabling analysis of cross-modal and combined effects on human perception and physiological reactions.

Integrating Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) principles into "smart building" development represents a critical step toward sustainable urbanization. This study aims to develop a comprehensive ESG-based assessment framework for smart buildings, specifically within the Malaysian context. To identify key themes, research trends and interdisciplinary relationships, the researchers conducted a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer, focusing on the co-occurrence of keywords related to smart buildings, sustainability and ESG elements. Findings showed that concepts including smart building, sustainability and governance are fundamental to the dialogue, underscoring the advancing importance of smart infrastructure in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Rather than employing a standard systematic review, this study adopts a bibliometric technique that visually and quantitatively illustrates the research landscape, offering a comprehensive view of scholarly activity over the previous decade. This study systematically developed a conceptual model, drawing on bibliometric findings to integrate ESG elements into "smart building" assessment. The environmental dimension emphasizes resource efficiency and renewable energy use. The social dimension prioritizes occupant well-being, inclusivity and health. While the governance dimension addresses regulatory compliance, transparency and digital ethics. While regulatory compliance, transparency and digital ethics adressed in governance dimension. This framework enhances sustainable building practices towards national agenda for smart city development and offers a fundamental framework for future smart building.

Micro and small wind turbines (MAWTs) are increasingly integrated into residential and prosumer hybrid energy systems. However, their real-world performance often falls short of catalog specifications due to mismatched wind resources, siting limitations, and insufficient attention to human comfort. This paper presents a comprehensive decision-support framework for selecting the type and scale of MAWTs under actual local conditions. The energy assessment module combines aerodynamic performance scaling, wind speed-frequency modeling based on Weibull distributions, turbulence intensity adjustments, and component-level efficiency factors for both horizontal and vertical axis turbines. The framework addresses three key design objectives: efficiency—aligning turbine geometry and control strategies with local wind regimes to maximize energy yield; comfort—evaluating candidate designs for noise emissions, shadow flicker, and visual impact near buildings; and climate adaptation—linking turbine siting, hub height, and rotor type to terrain roughness, turbulence, and built environment characteristics. Case studies from low and moderate wind locations in Central Europe demonstrate how multi-criteria filtering avoids oversizing, improves the autonomy of hybrid PV–wind systems, and identifies configurations that may exceed permissible limits for noise or flicker. The proposed methodology enables evidence-based deployment of MAWTs in decentralized energy systems that balance technical performance, resilience, and occupant well-being.

The quality of the indoor environment has substantial impacts on occupant well-being and quality of life. Maintaining a positive indoor environment is particularly critical in complex architectural environments such as healthcare facilities. This paper adopts a mixed methodological approach to assess occupant well-being through architectural design and indoor environmental quality in one of Bahrain’s private hospitals. A total of 54 hospital occupants participated in an online questionnaire to understand their perception of the indoor environment quality and its impact on their well-being. On-site observations are conducted to analyze the current physical state of the hospital from an architectural point of view, and triangulate the results with the questionnaire results. The findings shed light on the importance of outdoor views and thermal comfort in enhancing occupant well-being. The results provide valuable insights to designers and stakeholders to improve the quality of life in hospitals in Bahrain, through design considerations related to the indoor environmental quality.

While personal thermal comfort is critical for well-being and productivity, it is often overlooked by traditional building management systems that rely on uniform settings. Modern data-driven approaches often fail to capture the complex interactions between various data streams. This pilot study introduces a high-accuracy, interpretable framework for thermal comfort classification, designed to identify the most significant predictors from a comprehensive suite of environmental, physiological, and anthropometric data in a controlled group of young adults. Initially, an XGBoost model using the full 24-feature dataset achieved the best performance at 91% accuracy. However, after using SHAP analysis to identify and select the most influential features, the performance of our ensemble models improved significantly; notably, a Random Forest model’s accuracy rose from 90% to 94%. Our analysis confirmed that for this homogeneous cohort, environmental parameters—specifically temperature, humidity, and CO2—were the dominant predictors of thermal comfort. The primary strength of this methodology lies in its ability to create a transparent pipeline that objectively identifies the most critical comfort drivers for a given population, forming a crucial evidence base for model design. The analysis also revealed that the predictive value of heart rate variability (HRV) diminished when richer physiological data, such as diastolic blood pressure, were included. For final validation, the optimized Random Forest model, using only the top 10 features, was tested on a hold-out set of 100 samples, achieving a final accuracy of 95% and an F1-score of 0.939, with all misclassifications occurring only between adjacent comfort levels. These findings establish a validated methodology for creating effective, context-aware comfort models that can be embedded into intelligent building management systems. Such adaptive systems enable a shift from static climate control to dynamic, user-centric environments, laying the critical groundwork for future personalized systems while enhancing occupant well-being and offering significant energy savings.

ABSTRACT Nature-connectedness holds significant space in different disciplines. However, nature-connectedness research within the context of hospitality and tourism is still relatively new. This study aims to comprehensively review existing nature-connectedness research reports conducted between 2018 and 2024, specifically focusing on hospitality and tourism research. The study identifies three prominent themes: environmental conservation, occupant well-being, and biophilic design philosophy. Exploring these themes provides researchers and practitioners with valuable insights into the potential benefits and implications of promoting nature-connectedness within the hospitality and tourism industry. The study’s findings shed light on the definition of nature-connectedness and current trends guiding future research directions.

The International Well Building Institute (IWBI) WELL Building Standard v2 is a performance-based system that measures, certifies, and monitors how buildings holistically impact the health and well-being of their occupants. There are ten Concepts in WELL v2. The WELL Sound Concept aims to bolster building occupant health and well-being through the identification and mitigation of acoustical comfort parameters that shape occupant experiences in the built environment. WELL Standard S02 prescribes maximum thresholds for ambient background noise that correspond to optimal levels of interior and exterior noise exposure. While the intent of WELL Standard S02 is to achieve desired ambient noise levels such that HVAC, exterior noise intrusion or other noise sources do not impact occupant health and well-being, compliance with the Standard may currently allow for permissible levels of low frequency noise (LFN) that are deleterious to health, negatively affecting both auditory and non-auditory outcomes. We explore the WELL Standard S02 here in the context of LFN and its health impacts, and recommend pragmatic solutions to decrease average and maximum Sound Pressure Level (SPL) C-weighted noise levels by an additional -5 dB for optimal protection of occupants from LFN levels that may pose a health risk.