Enhancing Comfort in Tropical Institutional Buildings: Integrating Thermal, Acoustic and Visual Performance with a Unified Index

This study explores the relationship between a country's level of development and its educational standards, emphasizing the significance of well-equipped universities in ensuring high-quality education. While research on comfort in educational buildings has often focused on individual parameters, such as thermal, acoustic, and visual elements, this paper proposes a new metric that integrates these factors to assess environmental comfort. The research was conducted in six hostel rooms at the National Institute of Technology Warangal (NITW) campus in India, utilizing both objective measurements and subjective surveys. Three single measures were introduced: a thermo-hygrometric index, an audio comfort index, and a visual illumination index, each normalized within a 0-1 range denoting comfort and discomfort conditions. A final total comfort index for each room was established by assigning appropriate weights to the three factors. The findings were compared to the questionnaire responses, evaluating the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. The results indicate a comprehensive assessment of indoor environmental comfort, with acoustic factors showing the least impact on overall comfort conditions. The study recommends equal weighting for thermal, acoustic, and lighting parameters when computing the combined comfort index. The building achieved an overall comfort rating of 0.64 out of 1, indicating a comfortable environment. The study also shows that there is a strong correlation between the new combined comfort index and the results from the questionnaire. `This research contributes a straightforward and integrated approach to gauge comfort levels in educational buildings and lays the groundwork for further assessments of institutional building performance.