On the behaviour and adaptation of office occupants

During the warm summer of 2006 a comprehensive longitudinal field survey of the adaptive actions of occupants, their thermal satisfaction and the coincident environmental conditions was conducted in eight Swiss office buildings. We have applied logistic regression techniques to these results to predict the probability of occupants’ actions to adapt both personal (clothing, activity and drinking) and environmental (windows, doors, fans and blinds) characteristics. We have also identified, for each type of control action exercised, the increases in temperature at which thermal sensation votes are reported. These “empirical adaptive increments” have also been defined for combinations of control action. In this paper we present the field survey methodology as well as the results relating to the above, which we discuss along with scope for further related work.