Thermal Comfort in a Naturally Ventilated and Air Conditioned Urban Arcade

Abstract

Thermal comfort research in office buildings has led to developments in new thermal comfort standards. Yet a review of thermal comfort research reveals a lack of information on human response to conditions in transitional spaces: courts, atria, and arcades; spaces influenced by the outdoors, but bounded by a building or conditioned space. This study focuses on one type of transitional space, the urban arcade. Adapting methods from past field research of indoor thermal comfort, we collected data using two techniques: survey questionnaires and physical measurement. Subjects walked through two arcades and completed a thermal comfort survey. To quantify the thermal conditions of the arcade, we designed a measurement cart, containing equipment and sensors that took measurements of the physical environment as subjects completed surveys. The arcades of Cleveland, Ohio served as a case study in which 25 occupants completed questionnaires in two arcades, one naturally ventilated, the other air-conditioned. In general, the thermal environmental conditions of the arcades met the specifications of current thermal comfort standards. A wide range of votes and large deviation between votes characterized thermal sensation voting of occupants.