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Occupants are active participants in their built environment, affecting its performance while simultaneously being affected by its design and indoor environmental conditions. With recent advances in computer modeling, simulation tools, and analysis techniques, topics such as human-building interactions and occupant behavior have gained significant interest in the literature given their premise of improving building design processes and operating strategies. In practice, the focus of occupant-centric literature has been mostly geared towards the latter (i.e., operation), leaving the implications on building design practices underexplored. This paper fills the gap by providing a critical review of existing studies applying computer-based modeling and simulation to guide occupant-centric building design. The reviewed papers are organized along four main themes, namely occupant-centric: (i) metrics of building performance, (ii) modeling and simulation approaches, (iii) design methods and applications, and (iv) supporting practices and mechanisms. Important barriers are identified for a more effective application of occupant-centric building design practices, including the limited consideration of metrics beyond energy efficiency (e.g., occupant well-being and space planning), the limited implementation and validation of the proposed methods, and the lack of integration of occupant behavior modeling in existing building performance simulation tools. Future research directions are discussed, covering large-scale international data collection efforts to move from generic assumptions about occupant behavior to specific/localized knowledge, improved metrics of measuring building performance, and improved industry practices, such as building codes, to promote an occupant-in-the-loop approach to the building design process.

There is limited research on noise exposure in multi-unit residential buildings (MURBs) despite the proven effects of noise on people’s physical and psychological health. This motivates the current study which aims to identify important noise sources in MURBs and investigate factors that impact acoustic comfort as well as determine the various impacts of noise on occupants. An online survey was administered to collect subjective assessments of noise exposure and the effects of noise from 213 occupants. Results of a Spearman’s correlation analyses show that, among the different outdoor noise sources, traffic noise annoyance has the strongest significant correlation with overall outdoor noise annoyance (correlation coefficient = 0.64, p = 0.000). Similarly, annoyance with airborne noise through floors/ceiling has the highest correlation with overall indoor noise annoyance (correlation coefficient = 0.47, p = 0.000). The findings show that building age, floor level, proximity to ongoing construction, existence of balcony, number of bedrooms, proximity to elevators and garbage chute are important buildingrelated factors that impact noise annoyance. The results also show that personal and demographic factors, such as occupants’ age, length of residency, ownership status, relationship with neighbors, and willingness to pay for better acoustic conditions, significantly affect subjective responses. Even though both indoor and outdoor noises cause annoyance, outdoor noises, especially noise from traffic, construction and neighborhood activities, cause more annoyance and sleep disturbance compared to indoor noise sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]