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Article

Personal Control of the Indoor Environment in Offices: Relations with Building Characteristics, Influence on Occupant Perception and Reported Symptoms Related to the Building—The Officair Project

by
Ioannis Sakellaris
1,*,
Dikaia Saraga
1,2,
Corinne Mandin
3,
Yvonne de Kluizenaar
4,
Serena Fossati
5,
Andrea Spinazzè
6,
Andrea Cattaneo
6,
Tamas Szigeti
7,
Victor Mihucz
7,
Eduardo de Oliveira Fernandes
8,
Krystallia Kalimeri
1,
Paolo Carrer
9 and
John Bartzis
1,*
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Western Macedonia, Sialvera & Bakola Str., 50100 Kozani, Greece
2
Environmental Research Laboratory, INRASTES, National Center for Scientific Research “DEMOKRITOS”, Aghia Paraskevi Attikis, P.O. Box 60228, 15310 Athens, Greece
3
Université Paris Est, CSTB-Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment, 84 avenue Jean Jaurès, 77447 Marne-la-Vallée Cedex 2, France
4
The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), P.O. Box 96800, 2509 JE The Hague, The Netherlands
5
ISGlobal, Institute for Global Health, 08036 Barcelona, Spain
6
Department of Science and High Technology, University of Insubria, Via Valleggio 11, 22100 Como, Italy
7
Cooperative Research Centre for Environmental Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter sétány 1/A, H-1117 Budapest, Hungary
8
Institute of Science and Innovation in Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Management, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias s/n, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal
9
Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences-Hospital “L. Sacco”, University of Milan, via G.B. Grassi 74, 20157 Milano, Italy
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Appl. Sci. 2019, 9(16), 3227; https://doi.org/10.3390/app9163227
Submission received: 11 July 2019 / Revised: 2 August 2019 / Accepted: 5 August 2019 / Published: 7 August 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Indoor Air Quality)

Abstract

Personal control over various indoor environment parameters, especially in the last decades, appear to have a significant role on occupants’ comfort, health and productivity. To reveal this complex relationship, 7441 occupants of 167 recently built or retrofitted office buildings in eight European countries participated in an online survey about personal/health/work data as well as physical/psycho-social information. The relationship between the types of control available over indoor environments and the perceived personal control of the occupants was examined, as well as the combined effect of the control parameters on the perceived comfort using multilevel statistical models. The results indicated that most of the occupants have no or low control on noise. Half of the occupants declared no or low control on ventilation and temperature conditions. Almost one-third of them remarked that they do not have satisfactory levels of control for lighting and shading from sun conditions. The presence of operable windows was shown to influence occupants’ control perception over temperature, ventilation, light and noise. General building characteristics, such as floor number and floor area, office type, etc., helped occupants associate freedom positively with control perception. Combined controlling parameters seem to have a strong relation with overall comfort, as well as with perception regarding amount of privacy, office layout and decoration satisfaction. The results also indicated that occupants with more personal control may have less building-related symptoms. Noise control parameter had the highest impact on the occupants’ overall comfort.
Keywords: IEQ; perceived comfort; sick building syndrome; health effects IEQ; perceived comfort; sick building syndrome; health effects

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Sakellaris, I.; Saraga, D.; Mandin, C.; de Kluizenaar, Y.; Fossati, S.; Spinazzè, A.; Cattaneo, A.; Szigeti, T.; Mihucz, V.; de Oliveira Fernandes, E.; et al. Personal Control of the Indoor Environment in Offices: Relations with Building Characteristics, Influence on Occupant Perception and Reported Symptoms Related to the Building—The Officair Project. Appl. Sci. 2019, 9, 3227. https://doi.org/10.3390/app9163227

AMA Style

Sakellaris I, Saraga D, Mandin C, de Kluizenaar Y, Fossati S, Spinazzè A, Cattaneo A, Szigeti T, Mihucz V, de Oliveira Fernandes E, et al. Personal Control of the Indoor Environment in Offices: Relations with Building Characteristics, Influence on Occupant Perception and Reported Symptoms Related to the Building—The Officair Project. Applied Sciences. 2019; 9(16):3227. https://doi.org/10.3390/app9163227

Chicago/Turabian Style

Sakellaris, Ioannis, Dikaia Saraga, Corinne Mandin, Yvonne de Kluizenaar, Serena Fossati, Andrea Spinazzè, Andrea Cattaneo, Tamas Szigeti, Victor Mihucz, Eduardo de Oliveira Fernandes, and et al. 2019. "Personal Control of the Indoor Environment in Offices: Relations with Building Characteristics, Influence on Occupant Perception and Reported Symptoms Related to the Building—The Officair Project" Applied Sciences 9, no. 16: 3227. https://doi.org/10.3390/app9163227

APA Style

Sakellaris, I., Saraga, D., Mandin, C., de Kluizenaar, Y., Fossati, S., Spinazzè, A., Cattaneo, A., Szigeti, T., Mihucz, V., de Oliveira Fernandes, E., Kalimeri, K., Carrer, P., & Bartzis, J. (2019). Personal Control of the Indoor Environment in Offices: Relations with Building Characteristics, Influence on Occupant Perception and Reported Symptoms Related to the Building—The Officair Project. Applied Sciences, 9(16), 3227. https://doi.org/10.3390/app9163227

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