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

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

Cureau, R. J.
•
Pigliautile, I
•
Pisello, A. L.
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October 1, 2022
Energy Research & Social Science

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 monitoring. Between these two approaches, living laboratories, often abbreviated as living labs, represent a valid alternative due to their resemblance to real-world settings. This allows observing actual behaviours while keeping the capability to reliably monitor and control the indoor environment. This work systematically reviewed the available information from 34 living labs for human comfort studies worldwide to define the scope, characteristics, and significance of living labs, for the first time. Most of the reviewed living labs are office environments, and only a few do not involve a university research institution in their operation and management. Most of them are in Europe and the United States, whereas there is a lack of such facilities in other locations and climate zones (e.g., tropics). A larger number of comfort studies in living labs is required to clarify the differences in the knowledge acquired in these experiments compared to in-field and laboratory ones. The review shows that living labs add opportunities for testing and optimizing in-novations in human-centric solutions for comfortable green buildings. Through the living labs approach it is possible to holistically capture the influence of IEQ on occupant perception and the related response, to gather data on larger and more diverse groups of people, and to conduct multi-domain comfort studies involving multidisciplinary approaches given their real-life settings.

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Type
review article
DOI
10.1016/j.erss.2022.102778
Web of Science ID

WOS:000862843700007

Author(s)
Cureau, R. J.
Pigliautile, I
Pisello, A. L.
Bavaresco, M.
Berger, C.
Chinazzo, G.
Belafi, Zs Deme
Ghahramani, A.
Heydarian, A.
Kastner, D.
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Date Issued

2022-10-01

Publisher

ELSEVIER

Published in
Energy Research & Social Science
Volume

92

Article Number

102778

Subjects

Environmental Studies

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Environmental Sciences & Ecology

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living lab

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human -centric approach

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multi -domain comfort

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occupant behaviour

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multidisciplinary research

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energy efficiency in buildings

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model-predictive control

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occupant behavior

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thermal comfort

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air-quality

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trombe wall

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energy use

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office

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design

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buildings

•

systems

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
HOBEL  
Available on Infoscience
October 24, 2022
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/191643
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