Comfort:

Personal comfort includes a range of factors, from thermal comfort and acoustics, through to privacy and our sense of control over our environment. These factors can affect how we feel within a space and can have long term health impacts. Achieving a home environment in which all the occupants are thermally comfortable can be tricky – what suits one person may not suit another. Nevertheless, steps can be taken, from ensuring a well-insulated building envelope and keeping humidity and thermal conditions at consistent optimal levels throughout the day, to the use of soft furnishings or solid drapes to reduce thermal runaway. Sound also impacts health and productivity. Creating an inviting and peaceful auditory environment in the home could involve segmenting rooms for specific acoustic needs (for instance, you might play the piano in the living room but keep the study more protected for focused work). In each of these rooms, there would be something to act as an acoustic barrier to ensure that noise overflow is controlled.