Publications related to Healthy building

Spatial Modeling for Building Design Evaluation: from Visual Landscape Quality Assessment to Devaluation Risk Estimation

Zoning reform is a crucial tool for cities to adapt to contemporary challenges. However, its implementation remains challenging. Property owners, with a vested interest in the value of their neighborhoods, are sensitive to local developments and the potent ...

EPFL2024

Efficacy of temporal and spatial abstraction for training accurate machine learning models: A case study in smart thermostats

Rachid Guerraoui, Alexandre David Olivier Maurer, Omid Ardakanian

Smart thermostats are increasingly popular in homes and buildings as they improve occupant comfort, lower energy use in heating and cooling systems, and reduce utility bills by automatically adjusting room temperature according to measurements of their bui ...

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA2023

Human sitting behavior at office work and its effect on metabolic rate under varying thermal exposure

Dolaana Khovalyg, Ryan Liao

Assessing and optimizing human indoor comfort is challenging as physiological, psychological, and environmental variables influence it. Therefore, it is crucial to understand variability of human physiological parameters and underlying mechanisms. Metaboli ...

2023

Building ventilation and outdoor air pollution: Implications for health, comfort and energy

Evangelos Belias

As humans spend most of their time indoors, indoor air quality (IAQ) significantly impacts their health. In parallel, building ventilation consumes significant energy, contributing to climate change. However, the relationships between the building ventilat ...

EPFL2023

DIET Controller: Dynamic Indoor Environment using Deep Reinforcement Learning

Arnab Chatterjee

Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) Systems utilize much energy, accounting for 40% of total building energy use. The temperatures in buildings are commonly held within narrow limits, leading to higher energy use. Measurements from office bui ...

EPFL2023

Dynamism in the context of views out: A literature review

Marilyne Andersen, Caroline Karmann, Yunjoung Cho

Previous studies have shown that access to a satisfactory view to the outside with sufficient daylight is essential for building occupants' health and well-being. It has also been suggested that certain features of visual content improve view-out quality, ...

2023

Transparent structured conductive coating for applications in smart windows

Jérémy Jacques Antonin Fleury

Solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth for a period of one hour contains more energy than that consumed by mankind over an entire year. Some of this solar energy is already collected by photovoltaic cells to cover the electricity needs of buildi ...

EPFL2023

Discomfort glare from daylight: Influence of transmitted color and the eye's macular pigment

Sneha Jain

Designing architectural façades that allow sufficient daylight to create visually comfortable and pleasant environments is a challenging aspect of building design. It requires accounting for visual comfort and discomfort glare risks and understanding the f ...

EPFL2023

Assessment of Monitoring Strategies for Inhalation Exposure and Occupancy in Office Environments

Seoyeon Yun

Given people's significant time spent indoors, ensuring good indoor air quality (IAQ) is essential because it significantly influences occupants' health and productivity. Office buildings consume about 50% of commercial building energy and 18% of total bui ...

EPFL2023

Validation of spectral simulation tools in the context of ipRGC-influenced light responses of building occupants

Marilyne Andersen, Clotilde Marie A Pierson

With the growing awareness about ipRGC-influenced light (IIL) responses, design applications related to these responses are flourishing. To compare design options and optimize lighting conditions for building occupants, lighting simulations are typically u ...

2023

Influence of Ambient Air Pollution on Natural Ventilation Potential in Europe

Dusan Licina, Evangelos Belias

When designed and operated adequately, natural ventilation (NV) can improve the buildings' energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality. There is a plethora of factors that limit the effectiveness of NV, such as the climate, surrounding buildings, no ...

AMER SOC HEATING, REFRIGERATING AND AIR-CONDITIONING ENGS2022

Bridging the gap from test rooms to field-tests for human indoor comfort studies: A critical review of the sustainability potential of living laboratories

Dusan Licina, Mengdi Kong

Occupants play a key role in determining final building energy consumption. Empirical evidence must support occupants' modelling. Experiments on human responses to Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) are usually performed in test rooms or as in-field monito ...

ELSEVIER2022

Reaching Thermal Comfort Zone Limits for Resilient Building Operation: A Winter Case Study for Offices

Dolaana Khovalyg, Verena Marie Barthelmes, Arnab Chatterjee

A specific range of acceptable indoor thermal conditions is stipulated by building performance standards to assure minimum dissatisfaction of occupants. Thus, the operation of buildings in practice tends to follow a cautious approach by setting the indoor ...

Routledge2022

Reinforcement Learning for proactive operation of residential energy systems by learning stochastic occupant behavior and fluctuating solar energy: Balancing comfort, hygiene and energy use

François Maréchal, Dolaana Khovalyg, Amirreza Heidari

When it comes to residential buildings, there are several stochastic parameters, such as renewable energy production, outdoor air conditions, and occupants’ behavior, that are hard to model and predict accurately, with some being unique in each specific bu ...

2022

Local heating and cooling effectiveness - an evaluation method based on calculated local and overall thermal state

Dolaana Khovalyg, Mohamad Rida

The application of Personal Comfort Systems (PCS) in the buildings demonstrated their potential to improve thermal comfort and reduce energy use by the space conditioning HVAC systems. With its personal controllability (on-demand) PCS is a practical soluti ...

TU Delft2022

Quality criteria for multi-domain studies in the indoor environment: Critical review towards research guidelines and recommendations

Dolaana Khovalyg, Verena Marie Barthelmes, Matteo Favero, Giorgia Chinazzo, Mandana Sarey Khanie

The perception, physiology, behavior, and performance of building occupants are influenced by multi-domain exposures: the simultaneous presence of multiple environmental stimuli, i.e., visual, thermal, acoustic, and air quality. Despite being extensive, th ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2022

Reinforcement Learning for the occupant-centric operation of building energy systems: Theoretical and experimental investigations

Amirreza Heidari

Occupant behavior, defined as the presence and energy-related actions of occupants, is today known as a key driver of building energy use. Closing the gap between what is provided by building energy systems and what is actually needed by occupants requires ...

EPFL2022

Occupant satisfaction with indoor environmental quality, sick building syndrome (SBS) symptoms and self-reported productivity before and after relocation into WELL-certified office buildings

Dusan Licina, Serra Yildirim

Recent green building certification programs have put a strong emphasis on occupant health and well-being. For recently emerged WELL certification, we lack evidence about its effectiveness in relation to occupant satisfaction, productivity and health. Here ...

2021

A conceptual simulation workflow to guide design decisions regarding the effects of daylight on occupants' alertness

Marilyne Andersen, Clotilde Marie A Pierson, Victoria Eugenia Soto Magán

Recent developments in the lighting research field have demonstrated the importance of a proper exposure to light to mediate several of our behavioral and physiological responses. However, we spend nowadays around 90% of our time indoors with an often quit ...

IOP PUBLISHING LTD2021

Alertness in work environments : on the role of indoor daylight exposure

Victoria Eugenia Soto Magán

Light enables to see the world around us, while playing a key role in our biological functioning. During the last decades, light has become an important research topic for chronobiologists and neuroscientists, and their findings are increasingly interwoven ...

EPFL2021