Occupant-Adaptive Façade Interaction: Relationships and Conflicts

Adaptive or Intelligent façades are those that can interact with users and dynamically vary their
performance or properties (controlling thermal or solar energy, air flow and/or daylight) in response to changing external conditions and indoor demands. Consequently, adaptive façades could help to ensure occupant comfort, health, well-being and satisfaction, while allowing resource-efficient building operation. However, effective adaptive façade solutions that provide an optimal balance between user comfort, satisfaction and energy efficiency cannot be achieved without knowledge of the multidisciplinary complexity of the user-façade interaction. The main objective of this paper is to preliminary review and analyse the existing literature on user interaction with intelligent buildings, especially with façades, and to propose a conceptual framework to capture the multi-disciplinary and multi-domain complexity of user interaction with adaptive façades. The interaction between adaptive façades and occupants is then modelled as a closed loop of information and action exchange. This paper concludes indicating which are the future research needs to be addressed in order to define what is a satisfactory interaction strategy between occupants and façades.