Users' Perceptions of Personal Control of Environmental Conditions in Sustainable Buildings

As part of a broader assessment of the performance of a worldwide set of sustainable buildings, the authors investigated the users' perceptions of personal control of internal environmental conditions. The main aims were to determine the amount of personal control building users had over heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, and noise; and whether they considered it to be important. A questionnaire survey, in which respondents rated these various aspects on a 7-point scale, was the principal instrument used. For this set of buildings it was found that the users' perceived the amount of personal control they had of lighting to be reasonable, but that for heating, cooling, ventilation, and (particularly) noise was relatively low. Around 30% of respondents see it as important to have this control. Some of the findings suggest that the better the users' perceptions of their environmental conditions, the less their apparent need for personal control, a line of enquiry possibly meriting further pursuit. A number of findings reinforced the conclusion that noise problems remain a real concern.