Valentina Fabi

Politecnico di Torino | polito · DENERG - Department of Energy

In recent years, research has emerged to quantitatively and qualitatively understand occupants' interactions with buildings. However, there has been surprisingly little research on building interfaces and how their design, context (e.g., location), and underlying logic impact their usability and occupants’ perceived control, as well as the resultin...

Nowadays, there is a need for reducing building's energy consumption while preserving a comfortable and healthy indoor environment. After a detailed analysis of the literature in the domain of indoor environmental quality, occupant well-being, health and productivity, the paper explores the relationships between energy retrofit, interventions, indo...

The stochastic nature of the human-building interaction is an established key driver of uncertainty when it comes to the prediction of energy consumptions in buildings. To retrieve behaviour-related data on a large scale, and to avoid the setup of complex in-field monitoring strategies, survey-based investigations can be a useful tool to obtain inf...

In Europe, more than 14% of the whole building stock dates from before 1920, but this percentage reaches over 50% in several urban centres. Therefore, historic buildings are fundamental to reach the current Europeans CO2 emissions' reduction targets. Historic buildings' energy retrofit is relevant not only from an environmental point of view; since...

Energy efficiency in buildings is a key issue in the current energy transition. In order to reduce building energy consumption, users’ behaviour and the perception of indoor environmental comfort must be taken into account; these aspects are inextricably linked to energy demand, consumption and related costs. In this paper, we present the methodolo...

Today, there is an increasing consciousness regarding the role of historical build-ings’ energy retrofit in reaching the ambitious European CO2 emissions’ reduction goals, which represents a great challenge due to the necessity of protecting their historic evi-dence. In elaborating strategies to increase historical buildings’ energy efficiency whil...

Energy efficiency in buildings does not only rely on efficient technical solutions and design of the building features, but is also highly dependent on how occupants decide to set their comfort criteria, as well as on their energy-related and environmental lifestyles. In this perspective, raising user awareness among occupants by training them to a...

In the present-day society, people spend about 80% of their time inside buildings, and specifically 30-40% in workplaces. From this evidence, the indoor environmental quality needs to be investigated, and in particular, the possible sources of indoor-outdoor pollutants and their impact on the human health, comfort and productivity. First, through a...

In this paper, the authors provide a general overview on the methodological framework behind the monitoring and evaluation strategies of Mobistyle project that are used as reference for the demonstration cases. The strategies identify parameters that need to be evaluated during several phases regarding the impact (energy, IEQ, health, behavioural p...

The outdoor air pollution and the insufficient hygiene of HVAC systems often result in low indoor air quality. The World Health Organization estimated that 50% of indoor biological contamination comes from the air-handling system; the air filters are sources of pollution due to the accumulation and proliferation of bacteria on the surface. Furtherm...

Purpose Today, about 30 per cent of European existing buildings can be entitled as “historical buildings”. Nowadays, their energy retrofit is important to reach the ambitious European CO2 emissions’ reduction objectives. The purpose of this paper is to outline a methodology to investigate the potential energy savings and the enhancement of histori...

Bridging the gap between predicted and real energy consumptions in buildings has become a crucial task in the building energy research community. In this context, numerous studies confirmed occupant behaviour to be a key driver of uncertainty that impacts building energy performance and environmental indoor conditions. In particular, occupant's act...

In Europe, some historical cities have more than 50% of buildings dated from before 1920. Nowadays, these buildings faces challenges when adapted to the current necessities of livability, environmental and economical sustainability. Literature demonstrates that occupants’ comfort perception and consequent behavior affect buildings’ energy efficienc...

The acknowledgment of occupant behaviour as a key driver of uncertainty in building energy analysis is today well established. Existing literature highlights the need of carefully addressing human-related interactions with the building envelope and systems. In response to this need, researchers have proposed a number of stochastic models that aim a...

Worldwide, the building sector accounts for 40% of total energy consumption. In Europe, where more than 14% of buildings dates from before 1920, reaching over 50% in some cities, historical buildings are fundamental to reach the current ambitious emissions’ reduction targets. Today, the energy retrofit of historical buildings is relevant not only f...

Extended literature reviews confirm that the accurate evaluation of energy-related occupant behaviour is a key factor for bridging the gap between predicted and actual energy performance of buildings. One of the key energy-related human behaviours is window control behaviour that has been modelled by different probabilistic modelling approaches. In...

In order to optimize building energy consumption, Member States will have to establish minimum efficiency requirements for systems, and promote the introduction of active control system in new constructions or major renovations. Energy saving, plant efficiency and environmental sustainability are also factors delineating smart buildings. Interestin...

Occupant behaviour is known to be one of the key sources of uncertainty in the prediction of building energy use. Extended literature reviews linked the large performance gaps between residential buildings with same properties and similar climate conditions to the way occupants interact with the building envelope and systems. Furthermore, in the la...

The increasing phenomena related to urbanization and human impact on landscape leads to re-think the future of the cities. As well as in buildings, a careful design, the use of renewable sources and the use of advanced technical solutions, to achieve a significant energy savings, are strategies not sufficient to define a “Post-Carbon city” or a “Po...

"Historical evidence indicates that when man first considered settlements and the order pertaining the rein, he showed concern for the conservation of this order and of monuments" [1]. Today, the conservation of historical buildings involves also the necessity to adapt them to the current lifestyles and legislation in order to maintain them, wherev...

The increasing attention for energy efficiency in buildings stimulates the expansion of “Smart buildings”. In offices and homes, building automation systems are suited to individuals, foresighting their needs. Occupants’ compliance is a fundamental requirement for a successful adoption of building automation systems. An important warning regards th...

Nowadays about 50% of global population lives in cities, responsible for about 70% of GHG emissions and by 2030 the urbanization rate will increase to over 75%. The paper analyses the new emerging concept of “Post-Carbon City” (PCC) and its main influencing factors regarding the building sector. It provides inspiration to re-think urban re-developm...

Commercial buildings are responsible for a significant portion of energy consumption and environmental emissions worldwide. Technical solutions to energy efficiency can help organisations achieving savings significantly, but behavioural change is equally important. Occupant's behaviour is a factor that affects building energy performances. In the f...

Occupants’ interactions with the building envelope and building systems can have a large impact on the indoor environment and energy consumption in a building. As a consequence, any realistic forecast of building performance must include realistic models of the occupants’ interactions with the building controls (windows, thermostats, solar shading...

The interactions between building occupants and control systems have a high influence on energy consumption and on indoor environmental quality. In the perspective of a future of "nearly-zero" energy buildings, it is crucial to analyse the energy-related interactions deeply to predict realistic energy use during the design stage. Since the reaction...

Occupants’ behaviour related to building control system plays a significant role to achieve thermal comfort and air quality in naturally-ventilated buildings. Generally, the published models of occupant's behavior are not validated, meaning that the predictive power has not yet been tested. For this reason, the validation of occupant's behavioral m...

People usually spend most of lifetime within buildings and so they need to make the indoor environment comfortable by heating, cooling, ventilation and illumination. Assessing the energy consumption with a certain level of accuracy is a key factor in the research for sustainability and efficiency in buildings. This study attempts to analyze window...

Nowadays about 50% of global population lives in cities, responsible for about 70% of GHG emissions and by 2030 the urbanization rate will increase to over 75%.

Occupant behaviour can cause major discrepancies between the designed and the real total energy use in buildings. A possible solution to reduce the differences between predictions and actual performances is designing robust buildings, i.e. buildings whose performances show little variations with alternating occupant behaviour patterns. The aim of t...

Realistic characterisation of occupants' window opening behaviour is crucial for reliable prediction of building performance by means of building energy performance simulations. Window opening behaviour has been investigated by several researchers, leading to a variety of logistic regression models expressing the probability with which actions will...

In order to meet EU 2020 energy efficiency aggressive goals, there is a need to scale up the achievement of real energy consumption savings of current high performing building to the urban level. However, current low-energy, zero carbon, and net zero energy buildings are not performing as designed. Within the building sector industry there is an in...

The contribution of households’ electricity pattern loads into demand response logics is nowadays a crucial issue. However, one of the specific challenge is to increase the use of energy management technologies, as well as the market deployment of real time optimization of energy demand response intelligent building automation systems, balancing en...

Existing dynamic energy simulation tools exceed the static dimension of the simplified methods through a better and more accurate prediction of energy use; however, their ability to predict real energy consumption is undermined by a weak representation of human interactions with the control of the indoor environment. The traditional approach to bui...

Buildings' actual energy performance frequently does not meet the expectations at the design phase. One of the potential reasons for the discrepancy between expected and actual energy performance may be the uncertainties associated with building occupants' presence and behavior (e.g., operation of windows, blinds, luminaires). In this paper, we inv...

An energy simulation of a building is a mathematical representation of its physical behaviour considering all the thermal, lighting, acoustics aspects. However, a simulation cannot precisely replicate a real construction because all the simulations are based on a number of key assumptions that affect the results accuracy. Above all, the real energy...

The current trend in reduction of energy use in buildings is oriented towards sustainable measures and techniques aimed to energy need restraint. Even so, studies have underlined large differences in energy consumption in similar buildings, suggesting strong influence of occupant behaviour. Variability due to occupants’ interactions within building...

Green buildings are now at the forefront of building research and climate change mitigation scenarios. The successful delivery of green buildings requires balancing energy and resource efficiency while providing a comfortable and healthy environment. Since the success of a high-performance building (HPB) depends on how it is designed, built, and ma...

The characterisation of window opening behaviour is crucial for suitable prediction of building performance (energy consumption, indoor environmental quality, etc.) by means of simulations. In this paper, data from a measurement campaign was used to validate three models of window opening behaviour. Data from the measurement campaign was used as in...

Occupant behaviour is often the first reason for the discrepancy between designed and real total energy use in buildings. A possible solution to bridge this gap is designing buildings whose performances show little variations despite of alternating occupants’ behaviour. The aim of this work was to investigate how occupants’ behaviour varies accord...

The aim of this study was to switch from a deterministic approach of building energy simulation toward a probabilistic one that takes into account the occupants’ interactions with the building controls. A probabilistic approach is proposed and applied to simulate occupant behavior realistically. Themethodologywas based on probabilistic evaluation o...

Energy building simulations are key tools to be used in each design phase of the building . Actually, the ability of building energy simulation programs to evaluate real energy use is undermined by a poor representation of the stochastic variables entering the calculation: among these, the ones relate human interactions with the control of the indo...

A method of defining occupants’ window opening behaviour patterns in simulation programs, based on measurements is proposed. Occupants’ window opening behaviour has a strong effect on indoor environment and the energy consumed to sustain it. Only few models of window opening behaviour exist and these are solely based on the thermal indoor/outdoor e...

Energy consumption in buildings is influenced by several factors related to the building properties and the building controls, some of them highly connected to the behaviour of their occupants. In this paper, a definition of items referring to occupant behaviour related to the building control systems is proposed, based on studies presented in lite...

Energy consumption in buildings is influenced by building properties, building controls and the way that these are used by the occupants of the building. This paper focuses on natural ventilation concerning the occupants' habits of opening/closing the windows in residential buildings. Preeminent variables influencing the occupants' use of windows a...

Models of occupants’ interactions with heating controls based on measurements were implemented in a simulation program. Simulation results were given as probability distributions of energy consumption and indoor environmental quality depending on user behaviour. Heating set-point behaviour of 13 Danish dwellings were analysed by means of logistic r...

Several studies have highlighted the significant gap between the predicted energy performance of buildings and their measured actual performance. Uncertainties regarding behaviour of building occupants are one of the key factors limiting the ability of energy simulation tools to accurately predict real building energy requirements . The paper focus...

Window opening behaviour has been shown to have a significant impact on airflow rates and hence energy consumption. Nevertheless, the inhabitant behaviour related to window opening in residential buildings is currently poorly investigated through both field surveys and building energy simulations. In particular, reliable information regarding user...

Energy and indoor environmental performance of buildings are highly influenced by outdoor/indoor climate, by building characteristics, and by occupants’ behaviour. Building simulation tools cannot precisely replicate the actual performance of buildings because the simulations are based on a number of basic assumptions that affect the results. There...

Different aspects are investigated in order to highlight the causes of increased energy consumption in buildings: in particular, the ongoing project IEA ECBCS Annex 53 groups the “influencing factors” into seven major categories empathising the role of occupant behaviour on energy consumptions. In fact, although building envelope and systems charac...

Every single artefact, either exhibited in a museum or as an integral part of a historical building, needs a controlled microclimate in order to be preserved. Since a monitoring program can support decisions and actions aimed at preventing the deterioration of vulnerable objects, the need to observe the environmental parameter status and variations...