Occupant satisfaction on indoor comfort in a green building

Abstract

Sustainable Development was innovated, as a new concept to act against the repercussions of the climate change and Sustainable Built Environment performs a pivotal role with total commitment within this innovation. Many international organizations have focused their interest on this new phenomenon and as one of these organizations; USGBC (United States Green Building Council) established the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification program, for buildings to be performed as truly as green buildings. Therefore, it is important to find out; the occupants of these green buildings are truly satisfied with their workplace environment. As a result, Indoor Environmental Quality of LEED platinum rated green building was deeply evaluated, questioning the occupants, focusing on the aspect of thermal comfort as the person’s psychological state of mind. Though, the building was within its extended comfort zone, from the analysis, it was found that, among all the variables, less number of occupants were satisfied with the thermal comfort and significant number of dissatisfied occupants were located in a specific area of the workplace and that justified, there should be some external factors which already exist, around the workplace, which are affecting the thermal comfort of the occupants. Therefore, this research emphasized that designers, need to think beyond the standards and guidelines, when ensuring the occupant satisfaction within new sustainable construction methodologies.