Social Welfare-Based Human Comfort Aggregation Model to Facilitate Healthy and Comfortable Indoor Environments

Abstract

A multioccupancy environment (e.g., classroom, open office space, auditorium) typically features unbalanced ambient conditions such as temperatures, humidity, CO2 levels, noise levels, and lighting conditions. It is also occupied by a large number of occupants with varying comfort requirements and preferences, making it extremely challenging to provide a collectively satisfactory environment to accommodate the comfort needs of this diverse population. This challenge is due to a lack of understanding and modeling of how to define group comfort levels based on individual comfort levels. This paper proposes a social-welfare-based human comfort aggregation model for quantifying the comfort levels of a group of occupants based on their individual comfort levels. The model accounts for the factors such as “inequality of human comfort” and “poverty of human comfort,” both of which have an impact on occupants' group comfort. A set of hypothetical and real case studies were conducted to illustrate how the proposed model can be applied in measuring the comfort levels of building occupants in different indoor environmental conditions. This research contributes to the body of knowledge by providing a new model for measuring group occupants' comfort. It provides a more explicit understanding of the relationships between group comfort and individual comfort in indoor environments. It could serve as the foundation for human-centered design and operation of buildings that offer more comfortable, healthier, and more inclusive indoor environments to building occupants.