From indoors to outdoors and in-transition; thermal comfort across different operation contexts

This paper focuses on the investigation of thermal comfort conditions in three very different

operational contexts using meta-analysis of different studies within a similar climatic context in the UK. This

includes extensive surveys indoors from offices, outdoors from urban areas, as well as indoors from airport

terminals. Recent research in airport terminal buildings has highlighted that there are very different user groups,

with diverse requirements for thermal comfort in such facilities. The paper investigates the hypothesis that staff

working in the different areas have needs more similar to those of staff working in offices, while passengers use

the building as a transition area with very different requirements and hence closer to the outdoor environment.

Analysing and comparing the thermal comfort conditions from the different contexts, it explores the role of

adaptation for thermal comfort attainment and satisfaction with the environment and the similarities of very

different operational contexts in terms of their thermal comfort characteristics. Finally, the paper highlighted

techniques for the potential transformation of thermal comfort scales, which can enable comparison between

different types of surveys and inform the wider thermal comfort debate.