This study presents a Quality of Life (QoL) survey to understand the influence of the housing environment and needs of residents from different housing sectors. The research focuses on Hong Kong where living conditions have become the main affect for people’s QoL. Through a household survey using a standard instrument “Word Health Organisation (WHO) Quality of Life-BREF”, the article found that among the four WHO QoL domains (Physical Health, Psychological Health, Social Relations And Environment), Environment, particularly its constitute aspect housing environment was the most influential factor for overall quality of life for the public rental housing sector where low-income people live. This research also found that different groups of people have differing needs of their housing environments: the low-income group needs better location and privacy while the medium and high-income groups need better architectural quality. Based on differentiating their needs and wants, this research argues for prioritizing the low-income group’s needs for effectively improving their QoL.

Universities spend billions of dollars on green buildings as a sustainability commitment. This research investigates occupant satisfaction with indoor environmental quality (IEQ), building design (BD), and facilities management (FM) in five highly ranked green higher educational buildings in the subtropical climate of Australia, in comparison to nine non-green counterparts. The results disclose that the green building users were more consistently satisfied than the non-green building users with BD&FM elements, such as design, needs from facilities, building image, cleaning, the availability of meeting rooms, and storage. On the other hand, the study revealed weaknesses of green buildings in IEQ, such as noise, ventilation, and artificial lighting. The individual environmental control positively correlated with satisfaction in non-green buildings, but did not significantly affect satisfaction in green buildings. This study also identified the influences of non-environmental factors on occupant satisfaction, such as gender, age, sitting close to a window, hours spent in the building and in the workstation, and the number of people sharing office space. The research provides evidence and guidance for investing in, designing, and managing green educational facilities.

This paper focuses on thermal environmental conditions in the stone dwellings of a Tibetan village in Danba County, Sichuan, China, in winter. During the study, field measurements and subjective survey studies were collected, simultaneously, to provide a comprehensive understanding of the thermal comfort conditions that were experienced by residents in cold rural areas of Sichuan. Subjective surveys involved questions about thermal comfort perceptions and acceptability in cold conditions. The status of thermal comfort and characteristics of indoor environmental qualities were investigated in the study. The majority of survey participants (47% and 74%) voted as “slightly cool” for temperature, and “slightly dry” for humidity in the studied typical winter days, respectively. The available adaptive opportunities for the residents were investigated through the survey studies. Adjusting clothing, drinking hot beverages, blocking air infiltration through windows, and changing activities were the most common adaptive measures. An adaptive coefficient ( $\mathsf{\lambda }$ ) was determined based on adaptive predicted mean votes (aPMV) models using least square methods to assess the different adaptation measures in the region. Findings of this study provided a valuable reference for thermal comfort adaptations in cold climates, where limited adaptive opportunities were available due to the low standard of living.

Purpose—The purpose of this article is to present evidence of occupants’ perception of their work environment in five different office types (Solo, Duo, 2–4, 5–8 and 8Plus offices). The study examined the influence of the number of office occupants on individual perception of indoor environment quality (IEQ) in office environments. Design/methodology/approach—A dataset of 5000 respondents in 67 commercial and institutional office buildings was analysed using IBM SPSS v23. The dataset contained user response on the BUS Methodology questionnaire that is designed to retrieve occupants’ perception of their work environments. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and multiple regression analysis were conducted to calculate the impact of the office environment on occupants’ perception of comfort and productivity. Findings - This study showed that occupants in Solo and Duo offices perceived higher satisfaction with their environment (except for temperature in summer), better health and productivity; and more control over the office environment than those in 5–8 and 8Plus offices. Occupants in 8Plus offices were most satisfied with the temperature in summer. It was also noted that the IEQ factors that predicted comfort were observed to not predict productivity. Noise was the only IEQ factor that had predictive power for both comfort and productivity in all the office spaces. Originality/value—This article provides intriguing findings on occupants’ perception of various types of office environment that contributes significantly to the debate on open-plan versus cellular office environments.

The influence of work groups (the number of occupants sharing an office) on occupant satisfaction with workplace environments was compared between commercial buildings and academic buildings. Using the Building Use Studies (BUS) methodology, a sample of 5000 surveys was collected over a 12-year period from 67 buildings around the world. In both academic and commercial buildings, solo offices (single occupant) obtained the best scores regarding productivity, overall comfort and health. Academics most disliked middle-sized open-plan offices (shared by 6 to 9 occupants), while in commercial buildings, office occupants most disliked large open-plan offices (shared by over 9 occupants). Occupants had higher productivity and perceived health in commercial buildings than those in academic buildings in all work groups. Productivity decreased as the number of occupants in the office increased in both academic and commercial buildings for all work groups except for middle-sized open-plan offices. Age had a significant influence on occupant perception in different work groups, when comparing commercial and academic buildings. Trivial differences regarding the effect of gender on occupant perception in commercial and academic buildings were also identified. The findings of this study points to the significance of office sharing in influencing high-performance working environments, especially in relation to open-plan layouts.