Thermal comfort field studies in two certified energy efficient office buildings in a tropical climate

There has been a growing awareness to include passive design concepts in buildings as a design strategy for achieving energy efficiency and optimum indoor thermal comfort in workspaces as well. The challenging task for the building designers in the hot-humid tropics is the provision of indoor environmental thermal comfort for the occupants of the building while controlling energy use for the office space. This study has been conducted to investigate the post occupancy evaluation of occupants’ satisfaction in the working-spaces of two energy-efficient office buildings in a tropical country viz., Malaysia. Two office buildings, which have been classified as energy efficient buildings, in Malaysia were selected for the case study. One of them is a Low Energy Office (LEO) building, designed for low energy consumption and the second one is a Zero Energy Office (ZEO) building which was designed for demonstration of renewable energy applications. From the research it is seen that the thermal comfort parameters lie within the recommended comfort zone of Malaysian standards with the exception of air movement in the workspace of both buildings. The results also show that the occupants were satisfied with their work-spaces, with “slightly greater satisfaction” in the LEO building than in the ZEO building.