Assessing thermal comfort and performance in the workplace: A test room experiment for summer and winter conditions

Abstract

The building sector significantly contributes to energy consumption and carbon emissions, as reported by leading authorities. Consequently, designers and researchers focused on developing new solutions and enhancing existing ones to improve operation and maintenance, to increase efficiency and reduce energy waste while maintaining adequate levels to ensure thermal comfort and productivity for users. This work proposes an experimental activity with tests in summer conditions carried out on a sample of 59 people involved on a voluntary basis, almost equally spread between male and female subjects. Seven values of PMV were investigated in a test room to ensure optimal control of indoor environmental parameters. The methodology applied to these tests has already been used for tests in winter conditions, to allow the comparison of the user behavior within two different seasons. This study aims to deliver insights into subjective comfort perceptions and the difficulties of assessing productivity in an office environment. The MADIT methodology was applied to groups of four individuals working on computers, engaged in two types of activities: a single task and a group task. The focus on individual perception, evaluation and preference supports the findings of a previous study on the heating season, showing more tolerance for colder environments rather than warm indoor conditions. Productivity management's analysis results show that participants express higher levels of productivity management during the winter season. However, summer's seasonal effects affect workers as they tend to include more the environmental parameters for productivity goals, reaching at least an intermediate level of productivity management.