Tenth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

We are entering a new age in the built environment where we expect buildings to deliver far more than just a place to work or live. It is widely believed that sustainable building design strategies create improved occupant comfort and satisfaction with respect to thermal comfort and indoor environmental quality. Yet this belief remains a hypothesis with little empirical support. IT buildings cater to more than 3000 users at a time. Nowadays people spend 90% of the time inside offices. This thesis evaluates whether green IT buildings provide the required comfort level as assumed at the design stage. Building occupants are a rich source of information for evaluating their comfort level in the building and to find out the solutions for their discomfort. This can be achieved by carrying out Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) after the building has been occupied for a year or two. A POE technique consists of qualitative and quantitative methods. POE was carried out in a LEED-India (EBOM) Platinum rated IT building in Pune. The core questions access occupant satisfaction with thermal comfort in the work area and measures adopted for making it comfortable were identified. The MRT of the same samples was taken to compare the quantitative and qualitative results. The survey will be used to evaluate the occupant thermal comfort in a green office building and identify areas needing improvement. The survey has been refined and modified and reference is taken from ASHRAE standard 55-2010 & ISHRAE 10001:2017 IEQ