Airport Terminal Buildings: Indoor or Transitional Spaces?

Session 6, Paper 1, CIBSE ASHRAE Technical Symposium, Dublin, Ireland 3-4 April 2014

This paper reports on the investigation of the indoor thermal environment in three airport terminal buildings in the UK, through extensive seasonal field surveys. The study involved environmental monitoring with questionnaire-guided interviews with 3,087 terminal users. The paper focuses on the thermal perception, preference and comfort conditions of passengers and terminal employees.

The results revealed significant differences between the thermal requirements of these groups, both preferring a thermal environment different to the one experienced. Passengers consistently demonstrated a wider range of comfort temperatures, while staff had limited adaptive capacity, leading to a narrower comfort zone. Furthermore, passengers’ neutral and preferred temperatures were lower than staff’s and significantly lower than the mean indoor temperature, which has significant implications for the design and refurbishment strategies for airport terminals.