William O’Brien, PhD, PEng, is a Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering and the principal investigator of the Human Building Interaction Lab at Carleton University, in Ottawa, Canada. From 2018 to 2023, he served as an operating agent for IEA EBC Annex 79, the team that led this book. He has won several prestigious awards including the IBPSA Outstanding Young Achiever Award, Ontario Building Envelope Council Rising Star Award, and the Ontario Early Researcher Award. Farhang Tahmasebi, PhD, CEng, MCIBSE, is a Lecturer at UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, in London, United Kingdom. As a researcher and practitioner of building performance simulation and performance-based design, he co-led IEA EBC Annex 79 task group focused on applying occupant behavior models in simulation-aided building design process. Prior to his appointment at UCL, Dr Tahmasebi was a researcher and tutor at TU Wien Institute of Architectural Sciences, in Vienna, Austria.

• 1. Introduction. 2. Fundamentals of IEQ and Occupant Needs. 3. Occupants in the building design decision-making process. 4. Methods to obtain the occupant perspective. 5. Occupant-centric performance metrics and performance targets. 6. Introduction to occupant modeling. 7. Fit-for-purpose occupant modeling: Choosing the right approach. 8. Advanced simulation methods for occupant-centric building design. 9. Building interfaces: Design and considerations for simulation. 10. Design of sequences of operation for occupant-centric controls. 11. Detailed case studies. 12. Conclusion.