Two case studies on user interactions with buildings' environmental systems

The design and operation of energy-efficient systems for indoor environment control (heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting) can benefit from reliable information on occupants' actions to bring about changes in the status of building control systems. Specifically, the computational modeling of occupants' control-oriented actions in building performance simulation applications can be significantly improved based on such empirical information on user behavior. The present paper concerns the type and number of user control actions as related to building systems in two office buildings in Vienna, Austria.