Occupant comfort in buildings is one of the most crucial considerations in designing a building. Accordingly, there is a growing interest in this area. Aspects of comfort include thermal comfort, visual comfort, acoustic comfort, and indoor air quality (IAQ) satisfaction. The objective of this state-of-the-art review was to provide a comprehensive, explicit, and up-to-date literature review on occupant comfort in buildings, since this issue has a great impact on the lifestyle, health, and productivity of occupants. A meta-synthesis method was also used for an analytical-interpretive review of previous studies. In this research, scientific research studies related to the subject of indoor occupant comfort in the period 2002–2022 were reviewed. Previous reviews have often covered the fundamental concepts and principles related to indoor occupant comfort. Although innumerable studies have focused on thermal comfort, other aspects of occupant comfort have not been considered. The review is analyzed and discussed in reference to type of study, case study geographical locations and climate zones, case study building types, decision-making models, assessment criteria, data-collection tools, and data analysis strategies. Finally, future research recommendations are presented. Through the review, we find that the comfort models used in research are mostly based on comfort perception votes collected from experimental studies, which may not reflect the preferences of users well. In addition, only the influence of environmental factors on the models has been investigated, and other personal factors have been ignored. This study presents a useful guide for researchers to determine their outlines for future research in this field.

Purpose: Optimisation of daylight admission through window is crucial for alleviating glare while maintaining useful daylight levels in order to enhance occupants' health, visual comfort and moderating lighting energy consumption. Amongst various solutions, fixed external shade is an affordable solution for housing spaces that need to be sophisticatedly designed, especially during the period of increasing home spaces as working environments. In the humid subtropical region, daylight control plays an important role in indoor comfort, particularly with areas with a high window to wall ratio (WWR). Due to the insufficient amount of such study on non-office spaces in Australia, shading-related standards are not addressed in Australian building codes.Design/methodology/approach: The chosen methodology for the research is a quantitative data collection and analysis through field measurement and simulation simultaneously. The first step is a multi-objective optimisation of shading elements through a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) on parametric modelling via Rhino3D CAD and simulation engines (DIVA and ClimateStudio). In the second phase, the Pareto front solutions are validated by experimental measurements within a room with a single north-facing window (the most probable for the daytime glare in Sydney) for the seven most common local window configurations.Findings: Through the simulation of ten genes, 1,560 values and 2.4 × 1,019 of search space, this study found an optimum shade for each local common window layout, resulted in +22% in (UDI) and −16% in views with discomfort glare on average. Moreover, an all-purpose polygonal shade showed an average of 4.6% increase in UDI and a 5.83% decrease in the percentage of views with discomfort glare.Research limitations/implications: The findings are subject to the room dimensions, window dimensions and layouts, and orientation of windows for selected residential buildings in Sydney.Originality/value: The study contributes to the development of highly accurate fixed external shading systems with rectangular and tapered-form external shapes. A real-time measurement by luminance-metre sensors and HQ cameras located at six eye levels is conducted to corroborate simulation results of the visual comfort.

In office buildings, an efficient design of windows and using light shelves as a passive design strategy significantly influence the thermal and visual comfort of occupants while enhancing the productivity and health of users. This study proposes a multi-objective optimization for the optimal design of windows and light shelves in office buildings to improve occupants' comfort. Initially, a parametric model was developed using Grasshopper parametric software. Afterward, the Honeybee energy and daylight plugin was employed for simulating thermal and visual conditions, and finally, multi-objective optimization was conducted with the Octopus plugin. This plugin can determine the best solution as a compromise decision for maximizing occupants' comfort. In this paper, an office building in Tehran has been chosen as a case study. The decision variables are window-to-wall ratio (WWR), shading control strategy, viewpoint, the transmission of glass, light shelf length, and light shelf height. The objective functions of the study are the annual average Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied (PPD) and the annual average Discomfort Glare Probability (DGP). According to the results, the proposed optimization model leads to an 18.5–70.1% and 9.3–57.1% reduction in DGP and PPD indexes, respectively. The study findings provide practical and useful instruction for architects to select optimal specifications of windows and light shelves to develop occupants' thermal and visual comfort in office buildings.

Glare is a kind of physiological phenomenon that influences occupants’ visual comfort. Discomfort glare scenes in comparison to other levels of glare have been difficult to estimate and need accurate and reliable metrics. In contemporary architecture, the glass façade is so popular since it can remarkably minimize energy consumption in buildings and maximize daylight utilization as a natural energy. However, it is necessary to consider occupants’ visual discomfort due to the daylighting glare risks during the initial stage of design. Since the measured glare metrics should have an acceptable correlation with the human subject data study, the agreement on the glare indices is complicated. This paper presents a comparison between subjective and simulation-based analysis of discomfort glare metrics in offices with a light shelf system. The discomfort glare metrics considered in this study include Daylight Glare Index (DGI), CIE Glare Index (CGI), Visual Comfort Probability (VCP), Unified Glare Rating (UGR), and Daylight Glare Probability (DGP). The parallel comparison was conducted by using simulation and questionnaire surveys to determine which criteria are more useful under different conditions. According to the findings, DGP yields the most reliable results in different levels of glare based on the subjective analysis and VCP has the lowest accuracy in each stage. UGR also has the highest accuracy rate for evaluating perceptible glare, DGI is applicable for assessing imperceptible glare, and CGI can be an acceptable index for approximating intolerable glare. The study results significantly reduce the complexity of the problem and can provide useful guidance for designers to select the most reliable glare metric based on climatic conditions.

The increasing global energy consumption in the building sector highlights an urgent need for energy-efficient design solutions. This study investigates the optimization of residential building envelopes in Bojnord, Iran—a city with a cold and semi-arid climate (BSk), characterized by harsh winters and relatively warm summers. A simulation-based methodology was adopted using parametric modeling and building energy simulation tools to assess envelope performance. Five façade strategies were selected for evaluation based on their climatic relevance, geometric adaptability, and feasibility within common construction limitations: optimized Window-to-Wall Ratio (WWR), ventilated double-skin façades (DSF) with air insulation and shading, Voronoi-based shading systems, perforated panels, and variable-porosity façades inspired by traditional Iranian geometry. Adaptive versions of these strategies were also examined. Results indicate that optimizing the WWR to 20% significantly reduces energy consumption, while dynamic façade systems—particularly those with adjustable WWR—offer the highest energy savings, reducing total consumption by approximately 7.73% compared to the baseline model. Conversely, some fixed strategies such as static perforated façades led to increased energy use. The findings provide insights for architects and urban planners into the role of adaptive and climate-responsive envelope systems in achieving energy efficiency and thermal comfort in cold and semi-arid regions. Limitations related to material costs, control complexity, and long-term performance of dynamic systems are also discussed.