Effects of gymnasium envelope and daylight pattern on exercisers’ feedback in a virtual reality

The daylight environment determined by the building envelope significantly influences the exercisers' well-being and perception. However, assessment methods that focus on exercisers' feedback for gymnasium envelope and associated daylight pattern have rarely been explored. Additionally, changing the detailed envelope form is time-consuming and costly in physical environment. The Cave Automated Virtual Environment (CAVE) was employed to investigate exercisers' feedback under a virtual matrix of four ratio of covered shadings on the facade (SFCR) conditions and four skylight (SL) conditions. Feedback from exercisers consisted of subjective and attention quality evaluation. The subjective evaluation was employed to measure psychosocial perception of exercisers and validity of virtual environment, including comprehensive assessment, psychological perception, the Igroup presence questionnaire (IPQ), and the Virtual Reality Sickness Questionnaire (VRSQ). Furthermore, exercisers' attention quality was also evaluated by task efficiency of the attention task and physiological responses including electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate variability (HRV). The results indicated that envelope form have significant impact on exercisers' feedback, suggesting that existing gymnasium envelope and irregular daylight pattern were inefficient for improving exercisers' perception. Specifically, better feedback was reported in conditions with SFCR3 (SFCR = 0.7) and SL3 (strip skylight) or SL4 (ring skylight), while the worst feedback was reported in conditions with SL2 (spot skylight), followed by conditions with SFCR1 (SFCR = 0) and SL1 (no-skylight), which were designed to replicate a real gymnasium. The novel assessment method for measuring exercisers' feedback in virtual environment has demonstrated its potential to enhance exercisers’ perception, health, and efficiency. •The effect of gymnasium envelope form on exercisers' feedback were confirmed.•The complex envelope system of gymnasium was generated and modified by the CAVE.•Exercisers' feedback comprised subjective, physiological and attention task.•The spot skylight was regarded as the least favorable form of skylight.•The moderately low shading of side-façade windows was more favorable.