There is less than one week to go until the 2017 CIBSE ASHRAE Technical Symposium, which this year takes place at Loughborough University on 5-6 April.
Over the next few days, the CIBSE Journal will highlight some papers that will be presented at the event, giving you a flavour of what to expect at the 7th Technical Symposium.
This year’s theme is ‘Delivering resilient high performance buildings’, which is inspired by this year’s ASHRAE and CIBSE presidential themes, respectively ‘Adapt Today to Shape Tomorrow’ and ‘Improving
Performance’.
The aim of the 2017 Technical Symposium is to provide evidence of the successful adoption of resilience in the design and operation of buildings.
A preliminary agenda is available at the CIBSE website.
Today’s mini-preview looks at a paper by Ruth Kelly-Waskett, of DeMontfort University, UK, on the impact of user behaviour on the effectiveness of retrofit smart glazing in an office building.
Electrochromic (EC) glazing is a smart glazing material that has the potential to provide shading without the use of blinds, giving building occupants more access to daylight and views, and reducing energy consumption and solar heat gain by cutting the use of electric lighting.
This paper describes a DeMontfort study of EC glazing user experience, focussing on the findings relating to user behaviour. It examines how users interacted with the EC glazing controls and other shading devices in their space, and how their behaviour and attitudes towards the technology influenced its effectiveness. The results of the study show that user issues can be an important factor in the successful implementation of green technologies, and thus on the resilience of high performance buildings.