Investigation into the risk of overheating in New Zealand's public libraries

Abstract

This paper examines the risk of overheating in three award winning sustainable public libraries in Auckland region of New Zealand through long term environmental monitoring of the building performance and occupants' survey. The survey was performed to twelve staff of the library who have occupied the buildings for more than two years. The data were further contrasted with a risk of overheating assessment, which are based on thermal comfort design parameters for free-running buildings. The results demonstrate that none of the libraries is at the risk of overheating during the summer season. However, the occupants claimed that the buildings overheat despite adaptive comfort criteria was used to design the libraries. The discrepancies between the method of overheating risk assessment and the surveys can be further explained by the fact that none of the methods considers the effects of the water content in the air. Such parameter is proven to have an effect on the capacity of the body to reduce its own temperature though the evaporative effect in the skin. Therefore, a standard that takes into account the humidity ratio such as the ASHRAE 55 might shed light to understand the thermal comfort responses of the occupants. The study provides insight into the socio-Technical issues in overheating risk assessment in the context of sustainable public libraries in temperate climates.