Occupant thermal comfort and indoor environmental conditions in Mies van der Rohe’s S. R. Crown Hall

ABSTRACT

There is little empirical data in the published literature on occupant thermal comfort in buildings from the Modern Movement in architecture. We present a field survey of occupant thermal comfort and indoor environmental conditions in Mies van der Rohe’s modern S. R. Crown Hall (1956) on the campus of Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, IL. Surveys were deployed to 557 student participants on four separate days, including two days in the cooling season and two days in the heating season, to assess their perceptions of thermal comfort throughout the space. Indoor air temperature, relative humidity and mean radiant temperature were measured concurrently in several locations throughout the space. Occupants reported high levels of dissatisfaction with comfort in the space (percent dissatisfied ranging 37%–54%), with somewhat counterintuitive results for this building type. Overcooling was apparent during warm weather and a combination of both over- and under-heating occurred during cold weather, contrary to what was expected in this building with a high thermal transmittance enclosure. There was also high spatial variability in comfort responses and measured indoor environmental conditions. Findings highlight the need to develop contextual approaches to meeting occupant comfort needs in this building while preserving architectural aesthetics/intent.

KEYWORDS:

• Occupant thermal comfort
• modern movement
• modern architecture
• modern heritage
• Mies van der Rohe
• indoor environment

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge faculty and staff in the College of Architecture at IIT who assisted with this work and the students who participated by completing surveys; we could not have accomplished this without them. We are also appreciative of the support of the Wanger Institute for Sustainable Energy Research (WISER) at IIT, which provided an interdisciplinary seed grant that funded portions of this work. It is also with great sadness that we must acknowledge that the lead author of this work, Lobna Mitkees, passed away in the fall of 2022. We publish this work on behalf of, and in honour of, Lobna, with permission from her loving husband, children and their family. Lobna, your creativity, determination and humanity knew no bounds. We miss you.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Wanger Institute for Sustainable Energy Research.