The Psychological Effect of Thermal Comfort in Curtain Wall Office Buildings: The Case of Addis Ababa City

This thesis is intended to identify psychological impacts of thermal comfort in curtain wall office buildings in A.A (Addis Ababa) city during summer and winter. A detail survey was conducted to identify individual perception of the thermal comfort level and its effect on their psychology in four curtain walled office buildings of CBE (Commercial Bank of Ethiopia) in Kality, kilinto, Adey Ababa and Saris woreda. Curtain wall in general tend to absorb high and low temperature in to the building, therefore the building users are exposed to more than average thermal comfort level, which leads to psychological effect and disturb the optimum thermal comfort level. The objective of the study was to evaluate the thermal comfort level of curtain wall office buildings in Addis Ababa and its psychological impact on the users. The assessment was conducted using methodologies such as subjective evaluation of psychological response of the survey participant to the thermal comfort level of the curtain wall office buildings and the objective study of analysing indoor microclimate thermal comfort level. The psychological effect had high differential effects, out of 80 participants 27% felt sad, 27% felt irritated, 23% felt depressed and only 23% felt happy during summer due to the thermal environment and in winter 40% felt happy, 20% felt depressed, 12% felt sad, 10% felt hesitant, 8% felt irritated, 5% felt motivated and 5% felt confident. Based on the thermal sensitivity vote (TSV) and thermal comfort vote (TCV) male participant were more comfortable during winter cold indoor temperature and female were comfortable with summer or warm indoor temperature, which indicated there is a gender thermal sensitivity and acceptability difference.