Smart Technology for a comprehensive approach of comfort in social housing Isam SHAHROUR, Khadija JNAT, Yasser ABDELGHANI Laboratory of civil Engineering and Geo-environmental University of LILLE Villeneuve d’Ascq 59650 Cedex, France Isam.Shahrour@univ-lille1.fr Afif BENYAHYA Lille Metropole Habitat (LMH) 425 Boulevard Gambetta, 59200 Tourcoing, France afif.benyahya@lmh.fr Abstract__ Comfort in social housing constitutes major social and environmental issues for housing tenants, public authorities and social housing managers. For tenants, it means living in an environment offering a minima of security, indoor comfort requirement (temperature, humidity, lighting, acoustic insulation, air quality) and outdoor good conditions (property, common areas, green space, parking) at affordable conditions. For the public authority and social housing managers, it concerns mobilization of funding for the management, renovation and extension of “degraded” stock to meet the demand of tenants as well as environmental requirement to reduce both energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission. Comfort in social housing constitutes a cause of distress for a part of the population and could be a source of conflict with managers and public authorities. This paper discusses comfort conditions in social housing and presents how this comfort could be monitored using Smart Technology. Keywords: Social Housing; Comfort; Low-Income; Smart; Technology; Home; Monitoring; Indoor; Outdoor I. INTRODUCTION Since buildings account for a significant part in energy consumption and greenhouse emission, both public authorities and housing managers have been developing strategies to use innovation to reduce buildings’ energy consumption. In this field, innovation covers three main areas, (i) construction of low- or passive- energy buildings through high insulation and use of local produced energy, (ii) use of the Smart Technology for the regulation of indoor temperature and optimization of air ventilation and (iii) incitation and awareness of inhabitants to reduce energy consumption. These measurements are effective in energy saving, but their long-term efficiency is related to their capacity to meet inhabitants comfort, which is a complex issue, in particular in social housing. Comfort in social housing constitutes a major challenge for both inhabitants and housing mangers. It could be a source of large distress, disturbance, instability, diseases and conflicts. Indeed, low quality of social housing buildings could be at the origin of serious sources of discomfort and disturbance for occupants. In addition, because of their low-income, social housing tenants cannot afford for expenses to ensure a minimum of comfort, in particular thermal comfort. This paper presents an inclusive approach for comfort in social housing, that combines conventional comfort in buildings and discomfort factors related to the low-income housing. Then, it presents use of Smart Technology to monitor the indoor and outdoor environments as well as the socio- economic factors related to tenants’ comfort. II. COMFORT IN SOCIAL HOUSING Comfort is a way of measuring occupant satisfaction which directly affects concentration and productivity. It concerns both physical and psychological issues. Comfort in buildings expresses the general satisfaction of occupants of their environment. Fanger expresses comfort as a state of neutrality "State of mind expressing the satisfaction of its environment” [1], while for Givoni, comfort is related to "Conditions on which the self-regulation mechanisms of the body are at a minimum activity level" [2]. According to Crowley, comfort is “self-conscious satisfaction with the relationship between one’s body and the immediate environment” [3]. Chappells and Shove indicate that comfort covers physiological aspects and it is in constant change [4]. Cole et al. integrate social, psychological, cultural and contextual aspects into comfort [5]. Comfort in social housing covers larger area than that of buildings. It includes conventional buildings comfort factors as well as additional factors related to the specificity of social housing, in particular their poor-quality and the low-income of tenants. Comfort in social housing should consider indoor environment, together with the outdoor environment and socio- economic situation of tenants (Fig. 1). 978-1-5090-6011-5/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE