Artificial Intelligence in Performance-Driven Design

9Occupant‐Driven Urban Building Energy Efficiency via Ambient Intelligence

Narjes Abbasabadi¹ and Mehdi Ashayeri²

¹ Department of Architecture, School of Architecture, College of Built Environments, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

² School of Architecture, College of Arts and Media, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, IL, USA

Introduction

Cities are major contributors to global energy consumption and associated emissions (IPCC 2014), with buildings being the primary energy consumers (US EPA 2017). To combat climate change, many cities worldwide, including those in the United States, have adopted climate action plans to achieve net‐zero emissions by 2050. Human dimensions including occupancy, occupant behavior, and socioeconomic aspects are identified as strong drivers of energy use in buildings (Hong, D'Oca, Turner, et al. 2015; Abbasabadi and Ashayeri 2021; Harputlugil and de Wilde 2021). Therefore, considering the human aspects of energy use in the building's lifecycle, from design to operation, is crucial for effective design and management and ultimately contributes to meeting energy reduction goals and combating climate change as a global priority (Mata et al. 2022). Occupant monitoring, occupant modeling, and energy feedback systems are the key approaches for bringing humans into the process of urban building energy optimization and improving energy efficiency and energy management in cities and promoting sustainability and built environment ...