An international review of occupant-related aspects of building energy codes and standards
Journal article, 2020
In light of recent research, it is evident that occupants are playing an increasingly important role in building energy performance. Despite the important role of building energy codes and standards in design, the occupant-related aspects are typically simple and have not kept up with the leading research. This paper reviews 23 regions’ building energy codes and standards by first comparing their quantitative aspects and then analyzing their mandated rules and approaches. While the present paper focuses on offices, general recommendations are applicable to other building types as well. The review revealed a wide range of occupant-related values, approaches, and attitudes. For example, code-specified occupant density varies by nearly a factor of three between different codes. This underlines the need for development of advancement in occupant behavior modeling approaches for future occupant-centric building performance codes and standards. Moreover, occupants are often referred to only implicitly; underlying expectations about energy-saving occupant behavior from building occupants varies greatly; and, only a few codes address occupant feedback and system usability. Based on the findings of the review, a set of initial recommendations for future building energy codes is proposed.
International review
Occupant behavior
Building codes
Author
William O'Brien
Carleton University
Farhang Tahmasebi
University College London (UCL)
Rune Korsholm Andersen
Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
Elie Azar
Khalifa University
Verena Barthelmes
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)
Zsofia Deme Belafi
Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Christiane Berger
Vienna University of Technology
Dong Chen
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
Marilena De Simone
University of Calabria
Simona d'Oca
Huygen Engineers & Consultants BV
Tianzhen Hong
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Quan Jin
Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Building Technology
Dolaana Khovalyg
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)
Roberto Lamberts
Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
Vojislav Novakovic
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
June Young Park
The University of Texas at Austin
Manfred Plagmann
Branz
Vinu Subashini Rajus
Carleton University
Marika Vellei
Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)
Silke Verbruggen
Ghent university
Andreas Wagner
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Eric Willems
Huygen Engineers & Consultants BV
Da Yan
Tsinghua University
Jin Zhou
Monash University
Published in
Building and Environment
0360-1323 (ISSN)
Vol. 179 art. no 106906Research Project(s)
Occupant well-being and productivity in sustainable office buildings: A multidisciplinary study on the key factors of indoor environmental quality
Formas (FR-2018/0010), 2019-01-01 -- 2021-12-31.
Categorizing
Subject Categories (SSIF 2011)
Building Technologies
Identifiers
DOI
10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.106906