Indoor environmental aspects, such as thermal comfort, visual comfort, acoustic comfort, and indoor air quality, play a significant role in our health, well-being, productivity, sleep quality, and interaction with buildings as well as buildings’ energy consumption, especially under an ever faster-warming climate. The radical changes in the climate and global energy markets generate many questions that provoke researchers to question the impact of climate change on indoor environmental quality (IEQ). How can building professionals and researchers improve the indoor climate? How can building users adapt? How can we achieve and maintain comfort ranges in a warming climate? How can the existing building stock respond to the climate change effects while maintaining acceptable indoor environmental conditions? What is the role of adaptive human behaviour in changing environments? How does the contribution of these factors change in a warming climate? How can IEQ enhance the users’ health, well-being, and sleep quality in a warming climate?
Thermal comfort research has evolved from a static paradigm of comfort temperature to include adaptive aspects of comfort as well as a multi-sensorial experience of a comfortable temperature that challenges researchers and designers. Considering interior lighting design, research has generally focused on visual task performance, colour rendering, glare reduction, illuminated appearance, and task lighting. Recent scientific discoveries revealed that non-visual effects of light influence our cognitive functions like sleep, alertness, behaviour, and mood, which open up a new perspective for researchers. While indoor air quality (IAQ) was highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the issue of optimising IAQ in net zero buildings is still under research. The attempts to reduce the operational carbon, which is in many cases related to the use of heating or cooling systems, often require improving airtightness as well as reducing ventilation rates and undesired air infiltration, which may conflict with the IAQ requirements for the users’ health and well-being. Moreover, the role of users’ behaviour needs to be studied as users’ worry about outdoor air pollution influences the frequency of window openings and purge ventilation.
This special issue aims to provoke scientific research to better understand the relationship between indoor environmental quality and users’ quality of life in increasingly warming climates. The editorial team of this Special Issue invites you to submit papers across the broader themes including, but not limited to:
- Weighting schemes of IEQ.
- IEQ emerging technologies like sensor technologies aiding IEQ.
- IEQ impact on users’ health, well-being, and sleep quality.
- Design requirements of IEQ in the context of warming environments.
- Role of adaptive human behaviour in achieving good IEQ.
- IEQ and justice in a warming climate.
- Optimisation of IEQ in net-zero energy buildings.
