Thermal and Visual Adaptive Comfort: Field Studies in Portugal

This chapter presents the main results of an interdisciplinary research study carried out in Portugal. The study aimed at understanding and influencing the evolution of thermal comfort and daylighting requirements considering specific Portuguese architectural, sociocultural and climatic characteristics and the need to limit unjustified energy use in buildings. The increased energy consumption may reveal better user comfort requirements and expectations, but it may also reveal design and lifestyle trends conducting to unsustainable options concerning new construction, rehabilitation and everyday use of buildings. As a matter of fact, some contradictory aspects can be detected: a greater intolerance in relation to exterior climate variations; the creation of indoor climates which frequently do not provide the desired well-being conditions (in working, leisure or living places) and unnecessary and excessive energy consumption. In Portugal, there is a growing tendency for the use (and abuse) of air conditioning systems, particularly in office buildings, transports and, more recently, in residential buildings. The systematic and permanent use of electric lighting in office and residential building sectors is also a common practice. The study that a multidisciplinary team carried out considered both physical (objective) and behavioural (subjective) factors. This research was based on extensive field surveys of office, multifunctional and educational buildings, elderly homes and conventional residential buildings. Sociocultural and climate (temperate Mediterranean) diversity was also considered in the selection of the case studies. In the context of the perception of thermal and visual indoor environments, along with detailed measurements of relevant indoor environment parameters, questionnaires were developed in order to evaluate the influence of adaptive processes, namely, of behavioural, physiological and psychological nature. An adaptive thermal comfort model and a comprehensive integration of the behavioural patterns and the energetic impacts in dynamic daylighting modelling have been developed.