Thermal comfort - C. Balaras

Modern buildings are designed to provide an optimum indoor environment depending on their function (working, leisure etc.). This way occupants can optimize their productivity and fully utilize their human resources. Indoor spaces should provide optimum thermal conditions (temperature, humidity, air movement), visual conditions (proper light levels and pleasant environment), acoustical conditions (low noise levels and disturbances), and air quality (required amounts of fresh air, control of odours and air pollutants). The objective is to achieve all the above conditions in indoor spaces, so that the occupant can be in total comfort (thermal, visual and acoustical), in a &s;healthy&s; environment; this is sensed by the skin (temperature, humidity, air movement and resulting cooling effect), as well as by the eyes (light levels and temperature variations), ears (atmospheric pressure, noise disturbances), and nose (temperature and relative humidity levels in the air and air quality).