Simulation-aided occupant-centric building design: A critical review of tools, methods, and applications

•A review of simulation-aided occupant-centric building design studies is presented.•Covered themes include occupant-centric metrics, models and design practices.•Most studies focus on energy-related metrics with a lack of implementation.•Metrics related to occupant comfort, wellbeing and space planning are understudied.•Improved data collection, modeling and communication methods are recommended. Occupants are active participants in their built environment, affecting its performance while simultaneously being affected by its design and indoor environmental conditions. With recent advances in computer modeling, simulation tools, and analysis techniques, topics such as human-building interactions and occupant behavior have gained significant interest in the literature given their premise of improving building design processes and operating strategies. In practice, the focus of occupant-centric literature has been mostly geared towards the latter (i.e., operation), leaving the implications on building design practices underexplored. This paper fills the gap by providing a critical review of existing studies applying computer-based modeling and simulation to guide occupant-centric building design. The reviewed papers are organized along four main themes, namely occupant-centric: (i) metrics of building performance, (ii) modeling and simulation approaches, (iii) design methods and applications, and (iv) supporting practices and mechanisms. Important barriers are identified for a more effective application of occupant-centric building design practices, including the limited consideration of metrics beyond energy efficiency (e.g., occupant well-being and space planning), the limited implementation and validation of the proposed methods, and the lack of integration of occupant behavior modeling in existing building performance simulation tools. Future research directions are discussed, covering large-scale international data collection efforts to move from generic assumptions about occupant behavior to specific/localized knowledge, improved metrics of measuring building performance, and improved industry practices, such as building codes, to promote an occupant-in-the-loop approach to the building design process.