The design of an indoor acoustic environment positively perceived by building occupants requires a perceptual approach to be adopted in order to define what makes it sound good. Soundscape standards ISO 12913 have been introduced to assess how the acoustic environment is perceived, in context, by people. According to the standards, a straightforward characterization of a soundscape as positive is currently possible only through measurements by persons, because of a current gap in linking perceptual metrics to acoustic or psychoacoustic measurements. In addition, despite applying also to indoor contexts, methods and perceptual metrics described by the standards have been mainly derived from studies related to outdoor urban environments and it is not clear whether they could be directly applied indoor. For this reason, a systematic review was performed to investigate: (i) Data collection methods used in the literature for indoor residential soundscapes and (ii) factors, output of such methods, that characterize them positively. For this purpose, a systematic review has been conducted in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses) guidelines. The Scopus database was searched for peer-reviewed journal papers published in English, between 1 January 2009 and 24 June 2019, including: (1) field or laboratory studies relevant to residential buildings and (2) studies assessing factors that influence the perception by building users of indoor acoustic environments. The search excluded studies related to: (a) Speech perception issues; (b) noise-induced sleep disturbance; (c) acoustic perception by hearing impaired building users; (d) perception of vibrations or impact sounds. The search returned 1087 results. After the screening process, 37 articles were finally included. Given the differences in methodologic approaches, a quantitative meta-analysis could not be performed, and a qualitative approach was adopted instead. A large part of the selected literature reflected a general effort of minimizing noise annoyance by reducing noise exposure and, in particular, noise levels. Questionnaires and guided interviews were used to capture people’s perception, while the adoption of soundwalks and non-participatory behavioral studies did not emerge in the review literature and need further investigation. The evaluation of a variety of auditory sensations both in their positive and negative dimensions, beyond annoyance, would be required to explore the positive perceptual potential of sounds. Besides sound level, a variety of factors related and unrelated to the acoustic environment were found to affect perceptual outcomes and a framework of evaluation has been proposed as a reference for future assessments. Results encourage the integration of soundscape methodologies into IEQ research, in order to enhance user health and well-being.

The focus of the building industry and research is shifting from delivering satisfactory spaces to going beyond what is merely acceptable with a wave of new research and practice dedicated to exploring how the built environment can support task performance and enhance people’s health and well-being. The present study addresses the role of acoustics in this paradigm shift. Indoor soundscape research has recently emerged as an approach that brings a perceptual perspective on building and room acoustics in order to shape built environments that “sound good” according to building occupants’ preference and needs. This paper establishes an initial discussion over some of the open questions in this field of research that is still in an embryonic stage. A thematic analysis of structured interviews with a panel of experts offered a range of perspectives on the characterization, management, and design of indoor soundscapes and health-related outcomes. The discussion pointed out the importance of both perceptual and multisensory research and integrated participatory design practices to enable a holistic view regarding the complex building–user interrelations and the design of just cities. Soundscape methodologies tailored to the peculiarities of indoor soundscapes can help to measure and predict the human perceptual response to the acoustic stimuli in context, thus reducing the risk of mismatches between expected and real building experiences. This perceptual perspective is expected to widen the scientific evidence for the negative and positive impacts of the acoustic environment on human health, well-being, and quality of life. This will support prioritizing the role of acoustics in building design and challenge many current design practices that are based on a noise control approach.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, as a result of the adoption of worldwide lockdown measures, the home environment has become the place where all the daily activities are taking place for many people. In these changed social and acoustical contexts, we wanted to evaluate the perception of the indoor acoustic environment in relation to traditional and new activities performed at home, i.e., relaxation, and working from home (WFH). Taking London as a case study, the present paper presents the results of an online survey administered to 464 home workers in January 2021. The survey utilized a previously developed model for the assessment of indoor soundscapes to describe the affective responses to the acoustic environments in a perceptual space defined by comfort (i.e. how comfortable or annoying the environment was judged) and content (i.e., how saturated the environment is with events and sounds) dimensions. A mixed-method approach was adopted to reinforce result validity by triangulating data from questionnaires and spontaneous descriptions given by participants. In this first part of the study, the main objectives were: (1) evaluating differences in soundscape evaluation, in terms of comfort and content dimensions, based on the activity performed at home, (2) identifying appropriate conditions for WFH and relaxation, and (3) investigating associations between psychological well-being and indoor soundscapes. The results showed that the environments were perceived as more comfortable and slightly fuller of content when rated in relation to relaxation than for WFH, thus suggesting a stricter evaluation of the acoustic environment in the latter case. As regards the second objective, spaces that were more appropriate for relaxation had high comfort, whereas spaces appropriate for WFH resulted more private and under control, i.e. with high comfort and low content scores. Lastly, better psychological well-being was associated with more comfortable soundscapes, both for WFH (r_s = 0.346, p < .0005), and relaxation (r_s = 0.353, p < .0005), and with lower content while WFH (r_s = −0.133, p = .004). The discussion points out the need of considering the implications of changed working patterns to rethink the design of soundscapes in residential buildings, also in relation to potential well-being outcomes that will be further investigated in the Part II of the study.

This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Ceiling fans have been used for decades as a means of providing thermal comfort in tropical countries\ud such as India. However, recent years have witnessed a significant increase in the use of air conditioning\ud as a means to achieve comfort, and therefore in the total energy consumption and related CO2 emissions.\ud Ceiling fans are still viable options to limit use of air conditioners or in combination with air conditioners\ud without compromising on thermal comfort and still achieving energy savings. Ceiling fans generate nonuniform\ud velocity profiles, and therefore relatively non-uniform thermal environments, whose characteristics\ud may be tough to analyse with simple modelling methods. This issue can be investigated using\ud CFD. However, to date, there are few works on ceiling fans, CFD and thermal comfort. More accurate\ud models are therefore required to predict their performance. The research presented in this paper aimed\ud to develop and validate a three-dimensional transient implicit CFD model of a typical ceiling fan available\ud in India by comparing simulation results obtained using different URANS turbulence models with\ud measured data collected in controlled environment. The results highlight that this ceiling fan model is\ud able to replicate the predominant characteristics of the air flow generated by the fan such as the\ud meandering plume and the local fine free shear layers. The best results are achieved when the SST k-u\ud turbulence model is used, with 83% of the simulated values being within the error bars of the respective\ud measured value