Investigation of Adaptive Thermal Comfort in Building Transitional Spaces - Case Studies in Cardiff, UK

Transitional spaces have been widely applied in building designs nowadays, which are present in the form of atria, lobbies, corridors and covered streets. As they have become common features of buildings, they account for 1040% of the total volume in different types of buildings. However, maintaining an acceptable thermal comfort for transitional spaces poses challenges to building designers and engineers as thermal discomfort has been revealed in such spaces of several newly constructed buildings, where there are still no recommended acceptable comfort range and thermal comfort prediction methods for transitional spaces. This paper aims to evaluate the appropriateness of PMV model in thermal sensation prediction in transitional spaces and to investigate the environmental performance and people’s adaptive comfort in transitional spaces. Field studies, which included on-site questionnaire surveys and physical measurements, were carried out during the summer period in three selected case buildings in Cardiff. They were The National Assembly for Wales – Senedd, Hadyn Ellis Building and Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. The total responses from the questionnaire surveys were 736 for these buildings. This paper first presents the findings from the field studies. Then, comparison between PMV and actual TSV was carried out. Poor correlations between PMV and actual TSV were identified. Besides, in-depth investigations on the human adaptability to thermal environment were conducted. Strong correlations were identified between the clothing value and indoor operative temperature. In addition to the analysis of the open question in the questionnaire about the actions that the people would take to overcome the uncomfortable situations, it is concluded from this research work that fine control of the indoor temperature of transitional spaces is not necessary and people would opt for self-adaptive actions to make themselves feel more comfortable in the transitional spaces.