Building Occupant Research

The built environment is a pivotal determinant of occupants’ health and well-being, influencing their overall quality of life. The COVID-19 pandemic has leveraged the interest toward a more conducive, comfortable and healthy indoor space for individuals promoting transformative changes in design guidelines. With people spending a huge amount of daily time indoors, the need for a supportive indoor environment has never been more urgent, particularly considering the resulting economic implications of indoor environmental quality. Integrating human factors into building decision-making phases and design is essential for delivering more user-centred and efficient buildings. In Building Occupant Research, empirical assessments, including in-situ monitoring campaigns and laboratory-based studies, are crucial to gather evidence-based design guidelines. Despite recent technological advancements, gaps persist in a scarcity of multi-domain assessments to consider multiple and multisensorial indoor environmental characteristics simultaneously. Indeed, challenges related to the complexity of data collection methods in physical settings and the limited generalizability of results emerged. A possible solution could be the implementation of more technological innovations into empirical assessment methods, developing suitable knowledge to support evidence-based design guidelines and a user-centred approach.