An experimental design framework for the personalization of indoor microclimates through feedback loops between responsive thermal systems and occupant biometrics

Abstract

How can building technologies accommodate different and often conflicting user preferences without dissolving the social cohesiveness, intrinsic of every architectural intervention? Individual thermal comfort has often been considered a negligible sensorial experience by modern heating and cooling technologies, and is often influenced by large-group norms. Alternatively, we propose that buildings are repositories of indoor microclimates that can be realized to provide personalized comfort, to create healthier environments, and to enhance the attributes of architectural interventions into haptic dimensions. In response, the goal of this study is to characterize an experimental framework that integrates responsive thermal systems with occupants' direct and indirect experience, which includes stress response and biometric data. A computational model was used up to inform and analyze thermal perception of subjects, and later tested in a responsive physical installation. While results show that thermal comfort assessment is affected by individual differences including cognitive functions and biometrics, further computational efforts are needed to validate biometric indicators. Finally, the implications of personalized built environments are discussed with respect to future technology developments and possibilities of design driven by biometric data.

Benchmarking of the BITalino biomedical toolkit against an established gold standard

“…The low-cost biomedical development toolkit BITalino [1, 2] is seeing an increasingly higher use within academia, for educational and research activities in a wide array of application fields [3, 4, 5, 6]. Despite the theoretical characterisation of different components of the system and laboratory benchmarking initially performed [7, 8], a recurring issue that is frequently pointed out regarding its use is the lack of empirical validation against a gold standard device.…”

A Systematic Literature Review of Non-Invasive Indoor Thermal Discomfort Detection

“…There is a lack of explanation behind the selection of the population samples in the processed studies. Additionally, some studies [33,37,[39][40][41]48,57] discuss in detail the limitations posed by the number of participants and that the number of people should be increased in order to make their code/models perform better in real life applications. In addition, the sex of participants is not discussed in detail.…”

Proceedings of the 26th Conference on Computer Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA) [Volume 2]

“…We also understand that there are effective relationships between individual thermal comfort and energy usage, color (Karlessi at al. 2009) and human perception (Matalucci at al. 2017).…”