An Investigation of Occupants’ Thermal Requirements in Indoor Transitional Space in Entertainment Buildings

Abstract

Indoor transitional space is a popular buffer space between buildings’ interior and exterior environments nowadays. Maintaining a comfortable indoor thermal comfort for transitional spaces often poses challenges to building designers and engineers. Some existing studies have already explored this topic, but they are mainly carried out in academic buildings. There are, however, still many other types of buildings containing transitional space, including entertainment buildings such as theaters and tourist centers. To provide useful information about people’s thermal requirements in the transitional space of entertainment buildings, this study has adopted both field measurement and questionnaire methods. Additionally, the same method has been repeated in an academic setting as well, so the results can be compared with existing studies. By comparing participants’ thermal requirements, it indicates that people’s thermal requirements are significantly impacted by operative temperature, which can give architects suggestions to improve the thermal environment in transitional spaces. In addition, in transitional spaces, people had a high tolerance for their thermal environment, especially participants in entertainment buildings, who showed a fairly high thermal satisfaction rate of 96% in winter and 94% in summer, far beyond the rates of 89% and 73% in academic buildings. Combined with the analysis of participants’ thermal preferences and the reason people stay in transitional spaces, it implies a close relationship between participants’ thermal comfort differences and the function that transitional spaces provide.