Developing occupant centric models to better understand the thermal comfort and wellbeing of older Australians

Abstract

The worldwide demographic trend of an ageing society has important design implications for the built environment. Older people’s individual differences and intrinsic capacities are very wide and undifferentiated consideration of this population is problematic, from both comfort and concomitant wellbeing perspectives. With respect to thermal comfort in dwellings, the traditional approach may result in a significant proportion of older occupants experiencing thermal discomfort, and subsequent health issues. This study reports on the development of an alternative to the generalized static thermal comfort models. The approach utilises occupant-centric and data-driven models with deep learning algorithms. Better focused models will facilitate design guidelines for older people’s built environment that respond more directly to their needs, helping to decrease thermally-related vulnerability, enhance well-being, as well as minimizing reliance on heating and cooling and reducing energy use.