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  • © 2018

Exploring Occupant Behavior in Buildings

Methods and Challenges

  • First of its kind to explore the multi-faceted topic of occupant behavior research using perspectives from architectural design, building physics, psychology, and social science

  • Provides a fundamental basis on topics such as research methods and approaches and sensors, data acquisition, and data management, while applying them directly to the occupant research

  • Full of illustrative examples, lessons learned, case studies, and recommended best practice, from the authors’ extensive personal experience and from the literature

  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

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Table of contents (12 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxviii
  2. Introduction

    • Andreas Wagner, William O’Brien, Bing Dong
    Pages 1-5
  3. Occupancy and Occupants’ Actions

    • Marcel Schweiker, Salvatore Carlucci, Rune Korsholm Andersen, Bing Dong, William O’Brien
    Pages 7-38
  4. Designing Research

    • David Shipworth, Gesche M. Huebner
    Pages 39-76
  5. Sensing and Data Acquisition

    • Bing Dong, Mikkel Baun Kjærgaard, Marilena De Simone, H. Burak Gunay, William O’Brien, Dafni Mora et al.
    Pages 77-105
  6. Introduction to Occupant Research Approaches

    • William O’Brien, Andreas Wagner, Julia K. Day
    Pages 107-127
  7. In Situ Approaches to Studying Occupants

    • William O’Brien, Sara Gilani, H. Burak Gunay
    Pages 129-167
  8. Laboratory Approaches to Studying Occupants

    • Andreas Wagner, Rune Korsholm Andersen, Hui Zhang, Richard de Dear, Marcel Schweiker, Edwin Goh et al.
    Pages 169-212
  9. Validation and Ground Truths

    • Da Yan, Chuang Wang, Xiaohang Feng, Bing Dong
    Pages 239-260
  10. Structured Building Data Management: Ontologies, Queries, and Platforms

    • Ardeshir Mahdavi, Mahnameh Taheri, Matthias Schuss, Farhang Tahmasebi, Stefan Glawischnig
    Pages 261-286
  11. Ethics and Privacy

    • Chien-fei Chen, Marcel Schweiker, Julia K. Day
    Pages 287-306
  12. Concluding Remarks and Future Outlook

    • William O’Brien, Andreas Wagner, Bing Dong
    Pages 307-310

About this book

This book is the first to comprehensively cover research methods for building occupant behavior. As this is of growing importance for building design and for building performance optimization, the book aims to provide a sound scientific basis for experimental studies in this field. It introduces the reader to fundamental questions about the topic and unfolds the different fields related to occupant actions and comfort. This is followed by more general questions about developing an appropriate research method and experimental design. A comprehensive overview of sensors for monitoring environmental and also behavioral and action-related quantities helps to set up an experiment. In this context, different experimental environments and data collection methods (in-situ, laboratories, surveys) are introduced and discussed in terms of their suitability for the respective research question. Furthermore, data management and reporting is addressed. The book concludes with fundamental challenges in conducting occupant studies, with chapters on ground truth, ethics and privacy.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Building Science Group, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Andreas Wagner

  • Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

    William O’Brien

  • Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, USA

    Bing Dong

About the editors

Andreas Wagner is a professor of Building Physics and Building Services at the Faculty of Architecture and leads the Building Science Group at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany.

William O’Brien is an associate professor and program advisor on Architectural Conservation and Sustainability Engineering at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

Bing Dong is an assistant professor and head of the Built Environment Science & Technology Lab at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Exploring Occupant Behavior in Buildings

  • Book Subtitle: Methods and Challenges

  • Editors: Andreas Wagner, William O’Brien, Bing Dong

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61464-9

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Engineering, Engineering (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing AG 2018

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-61463-2Published: 08 November 2017

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-87086-1Published: 24 August 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-61464-9Published: 27 October 2017

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXVIII, 310

  • Number of Illustrations: 24 b/w illustrations, 58 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Building Physics, HVAC, Research Methodology, Simulation and Modeling, Facility Management, Industrial and Organizational Psychology

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 149.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access