Numerous climate chamber and field studies have been conducted in the hot and humid South East Asia and the surrounding regions since the 1930s. The majority of thermal comfort studies
conducted have been based on the field studies which have proposed neutral temperatures higher than 24.5 1C (asshownin Table 1) for offices, classrooms and residential buildings, recommended by ASHRAE Standards 55. For the indoor design conditions, the comfort ranges in all studies have higher maximum values, some at 4 1Chigher than the recommended range (23–26 1C) for the air-
conditioned buildings.