Have you ever walked into a building filled with sunlight pouring through skylights? It’s a beautiful sight that makes spaces feel open and inviting. But did you know that these skylights can do more than just brighten up a room? I had the chance to study this firsthand with Professor R.A. Attalage, and I want to share my eye-opening experience with you.
Picture this: a busy supermarket in Sri Lanka, with 50 skylights on its roof. The air conditioning was keeping things cool at around 27 degrees Celsius. Everything seemed normal until a sudden power cut turned off the air conditioning. You might expect that the shoppers would start feeling uncomfortable in the rising heat, right? But here’s the surprise – they didn’t!
In this article, I’ll explain how people in the supermarket stayed comfortable even without the air conditioning, and what we can learn from their unexpected response. It turns out that human comfort is not just about numbers; it’s about how our minds and bodies adapt to different situations.
If you’re short on time, here’s the key point: while we have smart ways to predict how comfortable people will be in a space, there are times when these predictions can be challenged. Our story goes beyond skylights and heat, revealing a fascinating insight into how our comfort expectations can shift in unexpected ways.
Join me as we dig into the story of those skylit supermarket aisles and discover how the interplay of light, temperature, and human perception can create a comfort equation that defies the ordinary. It’s a journey that will change the way you think about the spaces you inhabit every day.
Wondering how I came up with that idea? Well, I did a lot of reading and looked at many books and studies. They were all trying to figure out a way to understand why people feel comfortable in different temperatures and situations. But guess what? None of them had a perfect answer. So, I thought the best way to know if someone is comfortable is just to ask them.
With this in mind, I made a list of questions that people could answer to show how comfortable they felt. I used a scale with seven points, kind of like a rating system. This scale is recommended by ASHRAE 55-2004, and lots of other researchers use it too.
As I learned more, I found out that you need to spend more than 15 minutes in a place to really feel if it’s comfortable or not. So, I hung out at the supermarket and watched people who came in. I wanted to see how they felt after being there for a while. Also, I wondered if knowing about the skylights could affect how they felt, so I told some of them about the skylights before asking their opinions.
But that’s not all. I had some tools to measure things like how warm the air was, how damp it felt, and how humid it was. These things all play a part in how we feel comfortable. So, I wrote down numbers for:
- How hot the air was (ta)
- How wet the air was (twb)
- How much water was in the air (relative humidity or rh)
Putting all these things together, I aimed to show how skylights, the surroundings, and what people think come together to shape how we feel comfy in a place. It’s like a puzzle where each piece helps us understand the bigger picture.
When conducting the study, I divided the entire building into 5 main sections for convenience. You can find more information on them in the appendix.
Discussing the thermal comfort within the supermarket building was the main objective of the on-site survey that was carried out by getting indoor climate readings. The figure below demonstrates the difference in indoor temperature inside the building within the time of the on-site visit.
As it is seen in the figure, the indoor temperature has gradually increased, but in an entirely random pattern. The temperature variation associated with different sections is indicated separately to make it easy to identify the differences among them.
Let’s take a look at the figure. In Section 1, which is the part of the building near the entrance with big glass windows, we saw some pretty high indoor temperatures. It was especially hot until around 01:30 PM. There’s a reason behind this, and it’s twofold. First, the air conditioning wasn’t running, and second, the heat from the sunlight coming through those massive windows was making things warmer. Other sections didn’t have this problem because they didn’t have those big windows. Plus, these windows have some shades outside that help keep the direct sunlight out.
Now, Sections 3 and 5 had cooler temperatures most of the time. Section 3, where household stuff is, wasn’t crowded, and it had fewer skylights compared to the other parts. So, not a lot of people and not too much sunlight helped keep it cooler. In Section 5, where they keep dairy and meat products, things were cooler too. This is probably because the fridges and shelves where they keep these items absorbed some of the heat.
Moving on to Sections 2 and 4, they followed a similar temperature pattern. These sections are in the middle of the building and have the same amount of skylights on the roof. They also had the same number of people in them. So, their temperatures were kind of like an average. This means we can use the temperatures in these sections as a baseline to compare with the other parts and also to understand how people felt in different spots.
In a nutshell, this figure and the information we gathered help us understand why some parts of the supermarket were hotter or cooler. We looked at things like windows, skylights, and how many people were around. These details are like puzzle pieces that fit together to show us the bigger picture of comfort inside the store.
The story doesn’t end there; let’s dive deeper into the responses we gathered. We wanted to understand how people felt about the temperature inside the supermarket, so we asked them a question: “What is the current thermal comfort level?” The answers we got paint an interesting picture, and you can see it in Figure 44. We spoke with 30 different shoppers randomly chosen between 09:30 AM and 02:00 PM on a regular weekday. This mix included both men and women, and they had different levels of activity and clothing. In simpler terms, it’s like getting the opinions of an average group of shoppers.
The results showed that 56% of the people felt just right, like the temperature was comfortable for them. About 20% felt a tad warm, and 12% felt a bit chilly. Surprisingly, only 12% said they were warm. This chart gives us a visual way to understand what the shoppers said. But there’s more to the story if we look closer. All the people we talked to had been in the store for more than 15 minutes before answering. So, we think they had enough time to get used to the temperature. When we asked the question the first time, most of them said they were feeling okay and comfortable. But when we dug deeper, some people mentioned they were a little cold or a little warm. A few said they were warm. It’s interesting to note that during the first hours of the store’s opening and when there was a power cut, some people felt warm. This could be because the air conditioning starts working around 8:00 AM when the store opens. So, the first batch of shoppers might have found it a bit too warm. And during the power cut, the air conditioning wasn’t working, which might have made things uncomfortable for those who stayed longer. Now, surprisingly, the skylights didn’t seem to have a direct impact on whether people felt too hot or not.
In a nutshell, the responses from the shoppers, combined with what we saw in the supermarket, give us a better understanding of how people cope with different temperatures. It’s like peeling back layers to reveal what makes us feel comfortable or not in a place like a supermarket. So, let’s keep exploring and uncovering the pieces of the puzzle that make up our comfort puzzle.
I also wanted to know how the people who work in the supermarket felt about the temperature. Even though I didn’t ask the staff during the questionnaire, this big supermarket has a lot of employees. Some are managers and wear long sleeves and pants. Others are salespeople and wear short sleeves and pants. The ladies at the counters wear short sleeves and skirts. Surprisingly, when I talked to them about how they felt inside the building, they all said they felt just right, no matter what they were doing or what they were wearing. Even the experienced staff who had been here for over 5 years said they felt comfortable, even during power cuts. Some of them also told me that they’ve never felt uncomfortable, even on really hot days. When I asked a few of the experienced staff about the skylights, they said the light from them doesn’t bother them, and they’ve never felt any direct sunlight discomfort from them. So, it seems like the skylights aren’t making things uncomfortable for the staff either, based on what they told me.
Conclusion
To sum it up, we set out to learn how skylights affect how comfortable a building feels. Turns out, feeling comfy isn’t just about how hot or cold it is around you. It’s also about how you feel in your mind. Our study took us to a busy supermarket where the temperature ranged from 25°C to 30°C during the day. But guess what? Even with not-so-great air conditioning, the people inside still felt good and comfy. This tells us that feeling comfortable is not only about the temperature; it’s also about how we adapt and feel in our minds. Those fancy skylights? Well, they didn’t mess up the good vibes inside the supermarket. They actually fit right in, making things look nice without making people too hot or cold. So, it’s not just about the numbers; it’s about how we feel inside that really counts.
Appendix
