Adaptive principles for thermal comfort in dwellings: From comfort temperatures to avoiding discomfort

Many theories on thermal comfort exist and there are many ways to deliver this in an energy efficient way. Both aspects are often studied in a static way and most of these studies only regard one of the aspects, seldom investigating what influence the way of delivering thermal comfort has on the actual perceived thermal comfort. This paper analyses the knowledge of the different disciplines and integrates it to get a holistic image of comfort and its delivery systems as well as opportunities in energy saving and enhanced thermal comfort. Furthermore, it aims to understand the dynamics of weather, thermal comfort and occupancy in dwellings, finding the opportunities for quality improvement and energy saving. The paper explains the framework considered for further development of new concepts for comfort delivery and an analytical method for optimizing dynamic building characteristics. This research is part of a PhD project at the Delft University of Technology