Avaliação do desempenho térmico e lumínico, considerando o nível de satisfação dos usuários: o caso de um edifício de escritório com estratégias bioclimáticas

Abstract

Buildings´ architectural features, such indoor environmental quality, interfere in health, wellbeing and productivity of their users. In addition, these characteristics also interfere in buildings´ energy consumption. The use of active systems, such as HVAC systems and lighting are some of the main responsible for this consumption. One aspect that contributes to this high consumption is the mismatch between architectural design and local climate. This negative impact could be reduced with the use of bioclimatic strategies to promote users’ thermal and lighting comfort. The contributions of these strategies can be evaluated during the buildings’ design phase (by computational simulations) and during its usage, after completion. Evaluating these contributions during the use phase allows: identify the positive and negative aspects of the architectural solutions applied, learn from the correct answers and avoid repetition of errors. Therefore, the objective of this work is to investigate the impacts of bioclimatic-design strategies on the thermo-luminous performance and on the users´ satisfaction level of an office building during its use phase. A building in operation, located in a low latitude coastal area with a hot humid weather, was selected as a case study. The bioclimatic-design strategies of this building were simulated and evaluated during the design phase. The proceedings to achieve the proposed objective was a post-occupancy evaluation realized by: direct observations; quantitative-data collection through environmental measurements in loco; and collection of qualitative data through satisfaction survey with users. The data collected were compared with reference parameters defined on the literature review and those used in the design phase. As a result, it was verified that the adopted bioclimatic-design strategies provided a high thermal performance to the building, from the technical and from the user’s point of view. However, the same did not occur with the daylight performance that was negatively impacted by changes in the proposed solutions during the construction and use phase. Among the conclusions, it is highlighted that, in addition to the design decisions, external aspects such as: the building construction, user behavior, communication flaws and surrounding characteristics can significantly interfere on the intended performance.