Intelligent Human-Buildings Interaction Lab as a Platform to Investigate Inhabitants’ Adaptation Towards Temperature Extreme Weather

Temperature extreme weather is rapid changes in heat or cold temperatures that occur suddenly and persists for days to weeks, having an important impact on inhabitants' indoor living comfort and health. During temperature extreme weather, inhabitants may experience indoor overheating or overcooling and engage in self-adaptation to build their own resilience against these threats. However, self-adaptation alone may not adequately address the climate change challenge, external support is necessary in this process. This study aims to configure an experimental platform in the Intelligent Human-Buildings Interactions lab (IHBI) at Umeå University, to create a well-controlled experimental environment to investigate how inhabitants adapt to temperature extreme weather. The IHBI lab is developed by a hybrid virtual-physical framework, with the ability to simulate extreme weather and observe inhabitants' adaptive behaviors, facilitating the development of behavioral guidelines, interventions, and other external supports for inhabitants’ adaptations. A pilot study validated the accuracy and authenticity of the developed experimental platform.