Towards a model of user behaviour regarding the manual control of windows in office buildings

This paper presents the results of a field study of manual control of windows which has been carried out in 21 individual offices within the Fraunhofer Institute's building in Freiburg, Germany, from July 2002 to July 2003. Window status, occupancy, indoor and outdoor climatic conditions were measured every minute. Previous research findings are validated and extended by the results of this field study. The analysis of user behaviour reveals a strong correlation between the percentage of open windows and the time of year, outdoor temperature and building occupancy patterns. Most window opening is connected with the arrival of a person. Based on the results, a preliminary user model is proposed to simulate and predict window status in office buildings with varying outdoor temperature and occupancy.