Post-occupancy evaluation of indoor air quality and thermal performance in a zero carbon building
Maintaining a comfortable indoor environment throughout the year makes up the main part of energy consumption caused by people’s use of buildings. In recent years, China has started to integrate sustainable technologies into green building design and construction. However, some post-occupancy report...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/64725/ |
| _version_ | 1848800158153703424 |
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| author | Trofimova, Polina Cheshmehzangi, Ali Deng, Wu Hancock, Craig |
| author_facet | Trofimova, Polina Cheshmehzangi, Ali Deng, Wu Hancock, Craig |
| author_sort | Trofimova, Polina |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Maintaining a comfortable indoor environment throughout the year makes up the main part of energy consumption caused by people’s use of buildings. In recent years, China has started to integrate sustainable technologies into green building design and construction. However, some post-occupancy reports on certified buildings revealed that such integration has been perceived to prioritize energy savings over comfort. This paper aims to investigate the ability of the first Chinese zero carbon building to maintain comfortable and healthy indoor conditions in the summer season. The research implements a combination of occupant survey and on-site measurements to evaluate the occupants’ perception of the indoor environment quality (IEQ) and benchmark the measurements against relevant standards. The results from this study show that the mean summer indoor temperature was 0.9 °C above the standard limit, while on average, occupants gave a positive score to the indoor thermal environment. High contentment with the building acoustics was reported by users and supported by sensors measurements meeting the standard values. The illuminance levels were mainly maintained high with the exception of the light in one of the studied zones. Analyzing the data on occupants experiencing sick building syndromes revealed that 45.8% of respondents experienced at least one of the symptoms. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:47:06Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-64725 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:47:06Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-647252021-03-10T06:31:41Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/64725/ Post-occupancy evaluation of indoor air quality and thermal performance in a zero carbon building Trofimova, Polina Cheshmehzangi, Ali Deng, Wu Hancock, Craig Maintaining a comfortable indoor environment throughout the year makes up the main part of energy consumption caused by people’s use of buildings. In recent years, China has started to integrate sustainable technologies into green building design and construction. However, some post-occupancy reports on certified buildings revealed that such integration has been perceived to prioritize energy savings over comfort. This paper aims to investigate the ability of the first Chinese zero carbon building to maintain comfortable and healthy indoor conditions in the summer season. The research implements a combination of occupant survey and on-site measurements to evaluate the occupants’ perception of the indoor environment quality (IEQ) and benchmark the measurements against relevant standards. The results from this study show that the mean summer indoor temperature was 0.9 °C above the standard limit, while on average, occupants gave a positive score to the indoor thermal environment. High contentment with the building acoustics was reported by users and supported by sensors measurements meeting the standard values. The illuminance levels were mainly maintained high with the exception of the light in one of the studied zones. Analyzing the data on occupants experiencing sick building syndromes revealed that 45.8% of respondents experienced at least one of the symptoms. MDPI AG 2021-01-12 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en cc_by https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/64725/1/Post-occupancy%20evaluation%20of%20indoor%20air%20quality%20and%20thermal%20performance%20in%20a%20zero%20carbon%20building.pdf Trofimova, Polina, Cheshmehzangi, Ali, Deng, Wu and Hancock, Craig (2021) Post-occupancy evaluation of indoor air quality and thermal performance in a zero carbon building. Sustainability, 13 (2). p. 667. ISSN 2071-1050 IEQ; sustainable building; indoor environment; health http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su13020667 doi:10.3390/su13020667 doi:10.3390/su13020667 |
| spellingShingle | IEQ; sustainable building; indoor environment; health Trofimova, Polina Cheshmehzangi, Ali Deng, Wu Hancock, Craig Post-occupancy evaluation of indoor air quality and thermal performance in a zero carbon building |
| title | Post-occupancy evaluation of indoor air quality and thermal performance in a zero carbon building |
| title_full | Post-occupancy evaluation of indoor air quality and thermal performance in a zero carbon building |
| title_fullStr | Post-occupancy evaluation of indoor air quality and thermal performance in a zero carbon building |
| title_full_unstemmed | Post-occupancy evaluation of indoor air quality and thermal performance in a zero carbon building |
| title_short | Post-occupancy evaluation of indoor air quality and thermal performance in a zero carbon building |
| title_sort | post-occupancy evaluation of indoor air quality and thermal performance in a zero carbon building |
| topic | IEQ; sustainable building; indoor environment; health |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/64725/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/64725/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/64725/ |