The feeling of comfort in residential settings II: a quantitative model

Abstract

Building science has historically used quantitative methods to study comfort. Yet, these methods struggle to consider non-quantifiable factors that are sometimes relevant in the determination of people’s comfort. The first article in this series argued that complementing quantitative methods with qualitative ones can help mitigate this limitation. A new model of comfort for residential environments is proposed—the feeling of comfort model—which is not constrained by the need to be quantifiable. Such a model offered new (although not final) insights into what comfort is, how it develops, and how it varies between individuals and groups of them. How can building performance simulations benefit from these qualitative insights? This question is explored by representing the feeling of comfort model mathematically and incorporating it into a building performance simulation program. Although an unvalidated proof of concept, the results from the simulation emulated some of the phenomena that current models struggle with. Insights produced by qualitative research can help develop quantitative methods and simulations that account for human cognition and psychology.