Indoor Environmental Quality Assessment and Occupant Satisfaction: A Post-Occupancy Evaluation of a UAE University Office Building

Abstract

As occupants spend almost 90% of their day indoors, especially in the workplaces, Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) plays a primary role in health and wellbeing, productivity, and building energy consumption. Adopting the IEQ and Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE), data has been gathered from nine multilevel open offices within a university building located in Al Ain, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for three winter months. Physical parameters were monitored using data loggers to record the main IEQ factors. In parallel, POE questionnaires have been distributed to obtain occupants’ satisfaction with the IEQ and health-related symptoms experienced in the workspaces. The IEQ and POE data have shown slightly above or below the recommended ranges with the occupants similarly and slightly dissatisfied with the building. The thermal comfort revealed concerns with 99% of temperatures below international standards where 55% of the survey respondents reported “too cold”. The IAQ measurements showed 45% and 30% of the respondents reporting “stuffy air” and “headache” which indicated symptoms that could be tracked to other parameters or a combination of several, and the findings have been discussed in detail in this paper. This research contributed to identifying correlations between measured data and occupant satisfaction and identifying common IEQ defects and their sources to better communicate with facility managers and architects.

Keywords

• indoor environment quality
• post-occupancy evaluation
• occupant satisfaction
• indoor air quality
• university office building
• hot arid climate