The product of an innovative research project realized in cooperation between three Swiss universities—École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne’s School of Architecture, the College of Architecture and Technology in Fribourg, and the University of Fribourg—the smart living lab is a research and development center for the built environment of the future. This high-tech structure also serves as an emblem of the cooperative’s aim to translate academic research into actual buildings. A new series of books entitled Towards 2050 will showcase the ambitious undertaking at various stages.@en

To investigate the relationship between occupants’ perception of control over building elements and their comfort, we conducted a study where two prototype office rooms were compared: while the first room allowed occupants to open or close the window and configure the shading, the second one was fully automated. The quantitative analysis of collected data a) supports the existing results in the literature reporting higher satisfaction where manual control is maintained, and b) uncovers a new impact of highly automated systems: lower control over building elements can increase the occupant's consciousness of the environmental factors and the saliency of comfort parameters.@en