Special issue on the fundamentals of occupant behaviour research

Abstract

(no german abstract) It has been just six years since the Journal of Building Performance Simulation published a two-part special issue on modelling occupants. The motivation then, like now, is to improve the predictive power of simulation to support better design, retrofit, and operations of buildings. We will not elaborate here, as this background and motivation is flushed out in virtually every published paper on occupant modelling and simulation! In 2011, the guest editors of the special issue on occupant modelling noted that many areas required future research and development, with priorities of: developing occupant models from time use survey data; coupling occupant activity models with behaviour and movement/presence; developing occupant models for broader contexts; and sharing model parameters. Since 2011, there has been a flurry of activity and formalized international collaboration. Most notably, International Energy Agency Energy in Buildings and Communities Annex 66 on "Definition and Simulation of Occupant Behavior in Buildings" has brought together over 100 experts from 16 countries to embark on a fouryear research programme. Annex 66 has played an important role in mixing engineers, architects, other designers, and social scientists. Annex 66 was the impetus for the current two-part special issue, for which the guest editors are active contributors. However, despite considerable advances made in the research community, the state of building occupant modelling and simulation research has barely penetrated practice (and O'Brien, Gaetani et al. in the current SI examine exactly this topic). Moreover, to paraphrase Aristotle, "the more we know, the more we know we don't know". Several papers in the current SI concluded that major fundamental questions remain unexplored. Given this circumstance, we set out to focus the current SI on contemporary fundamental contributions to the field of building occupant modelling and simulation, while following a structure that consists of three major stages of occupant research: data collection, modelling, and simulation. The conceptual structure of this two-part special issue is outlined in Figure 1.

It has been just six years since the Journal of Building Performance Simulation published a two-part special issue on modelling occupants. The motivation then, like now, is to improve the predictive power of simulation to support better design, retrofit, and operations of buildings. We will not elaborate here, as this background and motivation is flushed out in virtually every published paper on occupant modelling and simulation! In 2011, the guest editors of the special issue on occupant modelling noted that many areas required future research and development, with priorities of: developing occupant models from time use survey data; coupling occupant activity models with behaviour and movement/presence; developing occupant models for broader contexts; and sharing model parameters. Since 2011, there has been a flurry of activity and formalized international collaboration. Most notably, International Energy Agency Energy in Buildings and Communities Annex 66 on "Definition and Simulation of Occupant Behavior in Buildings" has brought together over 100 experts from 16 countries to embark on a fouryear research programme. Annex 66 has played an important role in mixing engineers, architects, other designers, and social scientists. Annex 66 was the impetus for the current two-part special issue, for which the guest editors are active contributors. However, despite considerable advances made in the research community, the state of building occupant modelling and simulation research has barely penetrated practice (and O'Brien, Gaetani et al. in the current SI examine exactly this topic). Moreover, to paraphrase Aristotle, "the more we know, the more we know we don't know". Several papers in the current SI concluded that major fundamental questions remain unexplored. Given this circumstance, we set out to focus the current SI on contemporary fundamental contributions to the field of building occupant modelling and simulation, while following a structure that consists of three major stages of occupant research: data collection, modelling, and simulation. The conceptual structure of this two-part special issue is outlined in Figure 1.