Adaptive Thermal Comfort

Susan Roaf is Emeritus Professor of Architectural Engineering at Heriot Watt University. Raised in Malaysia and the Australian bush and educated in Britain, she has lived and worked as an architect, anthropologist, and archaeologist in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, California, and Antarctica, experiences that colour her unique understanding of buildings and comfort in different climates and cultures and that inspired her work on adapting buildings and cities to a heating world. She pioneered UK building–integrated solar technologies and eco-design and, with Nicol and Humphreys, has promoted adaptive thermal comfort globally. Her expertise in ancient technologies informed some of her 23 books and other publications, all aimed at better understanding performance in the past, present, and future.Fergus Nicol is an award-winning leader in the field of adaptive thermal comfort, having started as a physicist at the Building Research Establishment in the 1960s. He moved on to work with the UK Medical Research Council and into teaching before leaving both to start the radical book shop Bookmarks. Returning to research in 1992, he is now Emeritus Professor in a number of universities and a top cited scholar across his many publications. He led influential pan-European and Pakistan studies on comfort, and he leads NCEUB, the Network for Comfort and Energy Use in Buildings. He co-founded and ran the Windsor Conferences on Comfort and is internationally respected for his support of fellow researchers and students.Michael Humphreys is known for his pioneering work on the adaptive approach to comfort. He was Head of Human Factors at the Building Research Establishment and has been a Research Professor at Oxford Brookes University. His scientific interests are the methodology of field studies of environmental comfort, the structure and statistical modelling of human adaptive behaviour, and the interactions between the several aspects of the indoor environment.

• DEDICATION PREFACEACKNOWLEDGEMENTSCOMFORT IN BUILDINGSChapter 1. Designing for Comfort at the ExtremesChapter 2. Dangerous Curves: The Overheating Buildings ProblemPEOPLE AND COMFORT Chapter 3. How Bodies AdaptChapter 4. How People AdaptBUILDINGS AND COMFORTChapter 5. How People Adapt in BuildingsChapter 6. Comfort CloudsCOMFORT AND CULTURES Chapter 7. Comfort, Cultures, and CustomsChapter 8. Comfort ColonialismTHERMAL HEARTBEATS OF BUILDINGSChapter 9. The Thermal Heartbeats of BuildingsChapter 10. Killer Buildings: HeatwavesChapter 11. Killer Buildings: ColdECOLOGY AND COMFORT Chapter 12. Ecology of ComfortChapter 13. Heat Flows and Ecological EngineeringChapter 14. Harvesting Comfort From LandscapesChapter 15. Mining Comfort From the EarthChapter 16. Thermal Mass and ComfortChapter 17. Harvesting Comfort From Sky CyclesChapter 18. Air, Radiation, and ComfortChapter 19. Thermal Landscaping of BuildingsDESIGNING FOR A HOTTER CLIMATEChapter 20. Reconnecting Designers to Climates Chapter 21. Firmness, Commodity, and DelightChapter 22. Designing Thermally Well-Behaved BuildingsChapter 23. Thermal Delight in DesignCOMFORT AND WELLBEING Chapter 24. Comfort and Well-Being: Physical HealthChapter 25. Well-Being: All About the MindChapter 26. Emotional Comfort and Social Well-BeingChapter 27. Spiritual Comfort and BeliefsChapter 28. Adaptable Buildings = Adaptive ComfortAPPENDICES

'Even as the climate warms, so too does the debate about thermal comfort in buildings. Adaptive Thermal Comfort: At the Extremes is appropriately hard-hitting and insightful – a true guide for hotter times ahead.' Jonathon Porritt, writer and campaigner, president of The Conservation Volunteers and Population Matters'We can’t air-condition our way out of the climate crisis – this book is an essential manifesto for designing a resilient future, showing how our bodies, buildings, and cultures must adapt to a heating world.' Prashant Kapoor, chief industry specialist, Green Buildings and Cities, Climate Business Department, IFC'This is a truly stupendous piece of work covering all dimensions of the question of thermal comfort in buildings –historical time, location, built space and the challenge of Climate Change. A must read for designers and researchers for an urgently needed "reset" for theory and practice.'Ashok Lall, principal of Ashok B Lall Architects, Delhi, India'How wonderful to read a book on science that is written so clearly: for in a time of adjustment we need plain speaking… As Sue Roaf says: "the first step to escaping from an echo chamber is to realise that you are in one." May this book assist you to thrust the window of your enclosed space wide open and brave this world which created you – if you can find one that opens!'Phil Harris, Troppo Architects'Many congratulations on this new book. It's brimming with ideas related to radically cutting carbon in the face of the drastic rates of climate change we are now caught in.'Aubrey Meyer, The Global Commons Institute, UK'Adaptive Thermal Comfort: At the Extremes is a provocative reading of how comfort has been defined, captured, codified, exported and enforced in our built environment – with highly uncomfortable results for our heating world. We are honored that our projects have been identified as exemplars for localized, adaptable and culturally attuned comfort. This book is a necessary critique of how we got here and offers actionable suggestions for designers, professionals and policy-makers moving forward.'Richard Hassell, WOHA, Singapore