The following are a collection of abstracts from a 2008 Special Issue of Building Information and Research entitled "Comfort in a Lower Carbon Society". The issue establishes a sound theoretical argument for revising current building comfort standards, which can be traced back to the rise of artificial air conditioning in the early 20th century United States. This area of focus has been given short shrift in architecture schools and amongst architecture circles, but seems important given the fact that the addiction to air conditioning over the past fifty years has essentially relegated architects to designers of fully controllable, sealed containers.
Please read and discuss. For more information on obtaining the full articles, feel free to e-mail me at jared.langevin@gmail.com.
Air-conditioning and the 'homogenization' of people and built environments.
Healy, Stephen
Recent research contests dominant conceptions of thermal comfort and the forms of life these constitute motivated by the energy-intensive character of thermal monotony. Thermal monotony is maintained via scientifically delineated norms of thermal comfort that configure a standardized, homogenous 'comfort zone'. The homogeneity of this zone is reflected in complementarily homogenous embodied dispositions, cultural norms, buildings and built environments that increasingly displace heterogeneous alternatives. The complex interdependencies among these things is explored by investigating how thermal comfort standards fundamentally shape forms of life and the built environments supportive of them. The analysis applies a, primarily, Foucauldian perspective to historical accounts of the emergence of air-conditioning to illuminate how the power of thermal comfort standards can be explained in terms of how they are constructed. The final section explores the relevance of these insights for the promotion of alternative approaches to thermal comfort.
Cole, Raymond J.,
Robinson, John,
Brown, Zosia
To what extent can the urgency of climate change and an evolving concept of agency (at the individual and social levels of building users) create a new context for rethinking the notion of comfort? A new, emerging notion of comfort is explored that embraces engagement with new conditions, new experiences, and new types of interactions between inhabitants and building systems and unfamiliar technologies. The emphasis is on communication and dialogue as two dynamic and adaptive processes necessary to achieve optimal building performance while valuing and responding to inhabitant knowledge and agency, and enhancing indoor environmental quality from the standpoint of the inhabitants. A primary conclusion is that the goal of shifting into a lower carbon society has created a new context for comfort, from its conventional emphasis as automated, uniform and predictable, to a broader notion that takes into consideration dynamic, integrated, and participatory aspects. The key dimensions of this emergent broader view of comfort are examined and the relationships between them revealed.
Harris, Howell John
The history of the revolution in heating and cooking technology in the United States in the first half of the 19th century is explored along with the resulting transformation of the American indoor wintertime climate. It is argued, contra William Meyer (2000, 2002), that the reasons for this massive behavioural change are traceable to an underlying demand for greater comfort, and to the complex market forces involved in the development of the technology to satisfy it and an industry to create and sell the resulting appliances, rather than simply to the increase in the price of the prevailing fuel: firewood. An attempt is made to extract 'lessons' from this history - plausible parallels with later transformations in the technology of comfort.
Parkhurst, Graham,
Parnaby, Richard
The recent growth in European use of mobile air-conditioning (MAC) in transport is examined with reference to the experience of the longer-established trend in the buildings sector and to experience in the US. Air-conditioning is identified as significantly undermining improvements in energy efficiency, whilst the penetration of MAC is observed as having been particularly rapid and deep compared with static air-conditioning (SAC). A conceptual framework for the adoption of MAC is then proposed, which draws on sociological and psychological concepts as well as technical considerations in characterizing the processes influencing the adoption and use of MAC. The availability of empirical evidence to validate this model is then considered, with the finding that significant gaps in knowledge exist about why MAC is adopted, who benefits from its adoption, how the systems are used in practice, and the extent of satisfaction of travellers with the comfort of the environments of 'mobile buildings'. Although social norms and behaviour with respect to MAC are flexible, and hence subject to influence by climate change policy, significant further research is required to inform the specification of that policy.
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Personal comment:
Ici je ne peux que renvoyer à RealRoom(s) (2005)... La monotonie thermale (mais aussi celle du confort), décrit comme une forme d'espace abstrait global, y était le thème central du projet.