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Office-based environmental control systems are centralized and designed to control entire spaces, ignoring use dynamics and requirements, and despite being regulated by standardized comfort models, they fail to satisfy real occupants, mainly due to their varied individual characteristics. This research is field-based with a quantitative approach and correlational design. Its objective is to empirically demonstrate that open-plan design, where different users share the same space and generalized environmental conditions, lacks a holistic view of IEQ criteria and the integration of other factors that affect health and well-being. Four buildings are chosen in different Chilean cities, measuring temperatures and CO2 levels at different desks, and applying a survey, which was designed as part of the research to analyze the estimation of relationships between variables and to reveal the factors that cause differences among occupants. The results show that people’s satisfaction is multivariable and depends on other factors that positively or negatively stimulate their sensations and perceptions, such as, for example, the option to personally control their environmental conditions. Likewise, it is evident that to achieve comfort, health is being affected while in the building.

DOI: 10.7764/RDLC.17.3.499 As part of a thermal retrofitting process of existing housing, energy and thermal performance is normally predicted by dynamic simulation that supposes standardized patterns of building use, without considering the key role of the users in building's energy consumption. This represents a weakness in how the evaluation and design of retrofitting projects is structured, as integrally determining factors in thermal and energy performance are not considered. Integrated evaluations of the homes being improved will help to choose effective and objective guidelines. This work proposes a more objective and holistic evaluation that uses varied and compared techniques, involving the user in post-occupancy evaluation so that they provide feedback for the improvement's design. The integrated diagnosis comprises numerical calculations, onsite measurements, energy simulations and an estimation of the user's perception, with the goal of showing the different results obtained through the different methods. The study shows great differences in what users perceive and expect with the suggestions for thermal improvement obtained from the simulation. It is concluded that, to attain a higher user satisfaction and a better energy performance of the building, thermal improvement strategies must be defined not solely based on standards or previous cases but must consider the expectations of the inhabitants and including experimentally measured values of certain physical-construction properties to calibrate the dynamic simulations.

En Chile, 75% del parque habitacional existente fue construido sin consideraciones energéticas-ambientales, convirtiéndose en altos consumidores de energía. Hoy existen medidas de mejoramiento energético para viviendas existentes, pero éstas solo consideran algunos desempeños con implicancia en la demanda energética, siendo cada uno mejorado de manera independiente, sin considerar la relación y el efecto que conllevan al estar integrados. Esta investigación propone cubrir una brecha de conocimiento, de cómo diferentes criterios de desempeños actúan integralmente en el mejoramiento energético-ambiental de una vivienda. Actualmente se carece de tal conocimiento, que bajo la filosofía prestacional, genera diversas estrategias de mejoramiento para objetivos de desempeños en climas templados: Confort Térmico, Eficiencia Energética por Calefacción y Calidad del Aire Interior. Se somete un caso de estudio en el centro-sur de Chile, a un diagnostico post-ocupacional (monitorizaciones, simulaciones dinámicas y encuestas de percepción), para establecer criterios de desempeños, cuya relevancia e interdependencia se analiza mediante un estudio multifactorial. Se concluye que para alcanzar dichos objetivos es implícito mejorar la vivienda bajo la integración de criterios como: aumento de hermeticidad al aire, disminución del valor de transmitancia térmico y entrega del caudal de ventilación mínimo; siempre en una solución holística y no aislada. In Chile, 75% of the existing housing stock was built without energy-environmental considerations. These houses are becoming high energy consumers in the country. Nowadays, it exist different measures to improve the energy efficiency of existing dwellings, but these benchmarks consider only some performance that have implication on the energy demand. Normally, these performance are improving in an independently way, without considering the relationship between them and the effect that they imply when they are integrated. This research proposes to fill a gap in knowledge of how different performance-based behave integrally in the energy and environmental retrofitting of existing housing. Currently it is a lack of such knowledge, that under the performance based philosophy, generates various strategies for improve the final objective of performance-based in temperate climates: Thermal Comfort, Energy Efficiency for Heating and Indoor Air Quality. It is selected a case study located in the center-south of Chile. It is evaluated with a post-occupational diagnosis (monitoring, dynamics simulations and user perception surveys) to establish the performance criteria. Their relevance and interdependence are analyzed by a multifactorial study. We conclude that to achieve these goals is implicit to retrofit the existing housing under the integration of the following criteria: increased air tightness, decreased thermal transmittance value and delivery of the minimum ventilation rate; always in a comprehensive manner.