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A. Mahdavi, H. Teufl, C. Berger:
"Evaluation potential of indoor environments' ecological valency";
Talk: 40th AIVC Conference, 8th TightVent Conference, 6th venticool Conference, Ghent, Belgium; 2019-10-15 - 2019-10-16; in: "40th AIVI Conference, 8th TightVent Conference, 6th venticool Conference - Proceedings", ISBN: 2-930471-56-3, (2019), 10 pages.

Buildings typically are expected to provide their inhabitants with the opportunity to influence the indoor
environment using various control devices. These include, for example, windows, luminaires, radiators, and
shading elements. The quality and adequacy of the indoor environment is thus dependent on the availability and
effectiveness of such devices. There is arguably a lack of generally agreed-upon evaluation procedures for this
aspect of buildings' indoor environment, namely its controllability by building users, or - in the terminology of
Human Ecology - its "ecological valency". In this context, the present contribution explores the possibility to
specify buildings' ecological valency in a systematic and reproducible manner. Toward this end, first the theoretical
foundation for this purpose is identified and previous related efforts are briefly reviewed. Subsequently, a specific
attempt for an ecological valency evaluation method is presented. As part of this approach, five main categories
of control devices are documented in various rooms of a building. They include windows, shading, lights, heating
and cooling systems. Whereas, the first component of this method deals with the basic availability of these control
devices and elements, the second part looks at their spatial distribution, effectiveness (both objective and
subjective), interface quality (to support user interaction), and ecological quality. The presented evaluation method
is tested for six different rooms of an office area in an educational building in Vienna, Austria. Some thirty
participants independently evaluated this area based on the proposed method and associated protocol. The results
point to high degree of congruence between the evaluation results of different participants while judging the
principle availability and typology of the control devices. Higher variation was observed in the evaluation of the
quality of devices and their interfaces. As a whole, the results suggest that methods based on similar premises
proposed in the present contribution may indeed provide a realistic opportunity to extend building performance
evaluation procedures beyond energy and cost criteria to cover aspects pertaining to user control and satisfaction.

(no german version)
Buildings typically are expected to provide their inhabitants with the opportunity to influence the indoor
environment using various control devices. These include, for example, windows, luminaires, radiators, and
shading elements. The quality and adequacy of the indoor environment is thus dependent on the availability and
effectiveness of such devices. There is arguably a lack of generally agreed-upon evaluation procedures for this
aspect of buildings' indoor environment, namely its controllability by building users, or - in the terminology of
Human Ecology - its "ecological valency". In this context, the present contribution explores the possibility to
specify buildings' ecological valency in a systematic and reproducible manner. Toward this end, first the theoretical
foundation for this purpose is identified and previous related efforts are briefly reviewed. Subsequently, a specific
attempt for an ecological valency evaluation method is presented. As part of this approach, five main categories
of control devices are documented in various rooms of a building. They include windows, shading, lights, heating
and cooling systems. Whereas, the first component of this method deals with the basic availability of these control
devices and elements, the second part looks at their spatial distribution, effectiveness (both objective and
subjective), interface quality (to support user interaction), and ecological quality. The presented evaluation method
is tested for six different rooms of an office area in an educational building in Vienna, Austria. Some thirty
participants independently evaluated this area based on the proposed method and associated protocol. The results
point to high degree of congruence between the evaluation results of different participants while judging the
principle availability and typology of the control devices. Higher variation was observed in the evaluation of the
quality of devices and their interfaces. As a whole, the results suggest that methods based on similar premises
proposed in the present contribution may indeed provide a realistic opportunity to extend building performance
evaluation procedures beyond energy and cost criteria to cover aspects pertaining to user control and satisfaction.

Indoor environment, building interfaces, ecological valency

https://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/publik_281933.pdf