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Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the relationships between sustainable building design and occupant well-being. It starts with a definition of sustainable design and well-being, and focuses on the relationships between energy performance and occupant feedback. Methodologically it draws on detailed monitoring and surveys of 12 case study office buildings in the UK and India, and the paper uses the data to explore whether energy use and associated CO2 emissions are correlated to occupant satisfaction and comfort. The results demonstrate that increased energy use in the case study buildings is associated with increased mechanisation (e.g. centralised air conditioning) and reduced occupant control. This reduced control in turn is shown to relate to reduced occupant comfort and satisfaction. Finally, the paper reveals that the reported health conditions of occupants correlates strongly with their levels of satisfaction. The overall conclusion is that energy use in typical office buildings is inversely correlated with the well-being of the occupants: more energy use does not improve well-being. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Use of stone and brick wall as high thermal mass is a common strategy in residential and commercial buildings in a hot tropical country like India for thermal comfort and energy savings. In this paper, thermal monitoring of high thermal mass residential buildings is performed in the composite climate of India for the summer and winter season. Separate mathematical correlations are developed to predict the indoor temperatures, as the functionality of high mass buildings is different for the summer and winter season. Statistical significance of developed correlations is further analyzed and found good correlation coefficient with field measurement. Finally, based on the thermal performance of these high thermal mass monitored buildings to produce thermal comfort indoors, the bio-climatic boundary of ambient conditions for the use of high thermal mass in buildings is developed for one climatic zone of India. The new bio-climatic boundary extends up to an average monthly maximum ambient temperature of about 38.4 °C at 2 g/kg specific humidity and follows a tilted line up to 35 °C at 20 g/kg specific humidity for indoor thermal comfort in the composite climate of India. Also, the high mass comfort zone extends to a limit of 40.9 °C when the airspeed is up to 1 m/s using a ceiling fan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]