Any time of year when there is heating or air conditioning in use, which is just about the entire year in most of the world, there are at-work debates about optimal workplace temperatures. Gunay and team have investigated requests to change workplace temperatures. In the course of their study, “Custom temperature setpoint change requests from four [large] office buildings were analyzed.” The researchers learned that, “The majority of the setpoint change requests were either to increase the default 22 °C [about 72 degrees Fahrenheit] temperature setpoints during the cooling season or to decrease them during the heating season…the [HVAC-type] operators tend to make greater setpoint changes upon hot and cold complaints than the occupants make through their thermostat overrides.”
Gunay, Weiming Shen, Guy Newsham, and Araz Ashouri. 2018. “Modelling and Analysis of Unsolicited Temperature Setpoint Change Requests in Office Buildings.” Building and Environment, vol. 133, pp. 203-212, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2018.02.025
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.