The Scales Project, a cross-national dataset on the interpretation of thermal perception scales

Marcel Schweiker, Amar Abdul-Zahra, Maíra André, Farah Al-Atrash, Hanan Al-Khatri, Rea Risky Alprianti, Hayder Alsaad, Rucha Amin, Eleni Ampatzi, Alpha Yacob Arsano, Montazami Azadeh, Elie Azar, Bannazadeh Bahareh, Amina Batagarawa, Susanne Becker, Carolina Buonocore, Bin Cao, Joon Ho Choi, Chungyoon Chun, Hein Daanen, Siti Aisyah Damiati, Lyrian Daniel, Renata De Vecchi, Shivraj Dhaka, Samuel Domínguez-Amarillo, Edyta Dudkiewicz, Lakshmi Prabha Edappilly, Jesica Fernández-Agüera, Mireille Folkerts, Arjan Frijns, Gabriel Gaona, Vishal Garg, Stephanie Gauthier, Shahla Ghaffari Jabbari, Djamila Harimi, Runa T. Hellwig, Gesche M. Huebner, Quan Jin, Mina Jowkar, Renate Kania, Jungsoo Kim, Nelson King, Boris Kingma, M. Donny Koerniawan, Jakub Kolarik, Shailendra Kumar, Alison Kwok, Roberto Lamberts, Marta Laska, M. C.Jeffrey Lee, Yoonhee Lee, Vanessa Lindermayr, Mohammadbagher Mahaki, Udochukwu Marcel-Okafor, Laura Marín-Restrepo, Anna Marquardsen, Francesco Martellotta, Jyotirmay Mathur, Gráinne McGill, Isabel Mino-Rodriguez, Di Mou, Bassam Moujalled, Mia Nakajima, Edward Ng, Marcellinus Okafor, Mark Olweny, Wanlu Ouyang, Ana Ligia Papst de Abreu, Alexis Pérez-Fargallo, Indrika Rajapaksha, Greici Ramos, Saif Rashid, Christoph F. Reinhart, Ma Isabel Rivera, Mazyar Salmanzadeh, Karin Schakib-Ekbatan, Stefano Schiavon, Salman Shooshtarian, Masanori Shukuya, Veronica Soebarto, Suhendri, Mohammad Tahsildoost, Federico Tartarini, Despoina, Teli, Priyam Tewari, Samar Thapa, Maureen Trebilcock, Jörg Trojan, Ruqayyatu B. Tukur, Conrad Voelker, Yeung Yam, Liu Yang, Gabriela Zapata-Lancaster, Yongchao Zhai, Yingxin Zhu, Zahra Sadat Zomorodian, United KingdomKarlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany University of Southampton

January 2019

Abstract

Thermal discomfort is one of the main triggers for occupants’ interactions with components of the built environment such as adjustments of thermostats and/or opening windows and strongly related to the energy use in buildings. Understanding causes for thermal (dis-)comfort is crucial for design and operation of any type of building. The assessment of human thermal perception through rating scales, for example in post-occupancy studies, has been applied for several decades; however, long-existing assumptions related to these rating scales had been questioned by several researchers. The aim of this study was to gain deeper knowledge on contextual influences on the interpretation of thermal perception scales and their verbal anchors by survey participants. A questionnaire was designed and consequently applied in 21 language versions. These surveys were conducted in 57 cities in 30 countries resulting in a dataset containing responses from 8225 participants. The database offers potential for further analysis in the areas of building design and operation, psycho-physical relationships between human perception and the built environment, and linguistic analyses.

Type

Journal article

Publication

Scientific data

Quan Jin

Senior researcher

Quan Jin is Senior Researcher in the research group Sustainable Building at the Division of Building Technology, and in the Area of advance Energy. She conducts research on indoor environmental quality from multiple disciplinary perspectives, and their impact on building energy efficiency and occupant health and comfort. The goal is to create tools and knowledge to improve human well-being and productivity in sustainable buildings while minimizing the energy consumption.