Adaptive Thermal Comfort: Foundations and Analysis

Business & Money

Humphreys, Michael

Nicol, Fergus

Roaf, Susan

Economics

Routledge

Adaptive Thermal Comfort: Principles and Practice: Principles and practice

The fundamental function of buildings is to provide safe and healthy shelter. For the fortunate they also provide comfort and delight. In the twentieth century comfort became a 'product' produced by machines and run on cheap energy. In a world where fossil fuels are becoming ever scarcer and more expensive, and the climate more extreme, the challenge of designing comfortable buildings today requires a new approach. This timely book is the first in a trilogy from leaders in the field which will provide just that. It explains, in a clear and comprehensible manner, how we stay comfortable by using our bodies, minds, buildings and their systems to adapt to indoor and outdoor conditions which change with the weather and the climate. The book is in two sections. The first introduces the principles on which the theory of adaptive thermal comfort is based. The second explains how to use field studies to measure thermal comfort in practice and to analyze the data gathered. Architects have gradually passed responsibility for building performance to service engineers who are largely trained to see comfort as the ‘product’, designed using simplistic comfort models. The result has contributed to a shift to buildings that use ever more energy. A growing international consensus now calls for low-energy buildings. This means designers must first produce robust, passive structures that provide occupants with many opportunities to make changes to suit their environmental needs. Ventilation using free, natural energy should be preferred and mechanical conditioning only used when the climate demands it. This book outlines the theory of adaptive thermal comfort that is essential to understand and inform such building designs. This book should be required reading for all students, teachers and practitioners of architecture, building engineering and management – for all who have a role in producing, and occupying, twenty-first century adaptive, low-carbon, comfortable buildings.

Science & Math

Technology

There has been widespread dissatisfaction with accepted models for predicting the conditions that people will find thermally comfortable in buildings. These models require knowledge about clothing and activity, but can give little guidance on how to quantify them in any future situation. This has forced designers to make assumptions about people’s future behaviour based on very little information and, as a result, encouraged static design indoor temperatures. This book is the second in a three volume set covering all aspects of Adaptive Thermal Comfort. The first part narrates the development of the adaptive approach to thermal comfort from its early beginnings in the 1960s. It discusses recent work in the field and suggests ways in which it can be developed and modelled. Such models can be used to set dynamic, interactive standards for thermal comfort which will help overcome the problems inherited from the past. The second part of the volume engages with the practical and theoretical problems encountered in field studies and in their statistical analysis, providing guidance towards their resolution, so that valid conclusions may be drawn from such studies.

This book is the third in a three-volume set covering all aspects of adaptive thermal comfort. It provides a simple, step by step method for designing comfortable low energy buildings in any climate. Building on the academic principles, practices and fundamental research described in the first two volumes this book is written for building designers, owners, occupants, planners, architectural engineers, self-builders, renovators and educated laymen. It has been written to demystify the art and science of the performance and impacts of buildings and to explain how to, in practice, achieve adaptable, well-behaved and well-liked buildings.

Adaptive Thermal Comfort: How to Design Comfortable Buildings

The fundamental function of buildings is to provide safe and healthy shelter. For the fortunate they also provide comfort and delight. In the twentieth century comfort became a 'product' produced by machines and run on cheap energy. In a world where fossil fuels are becoming ever scarcer and more expensive, and the climate more extreme, the challenge of designing comfortable buildings today requires a new approach. This timely book is the first in a trilogy from leaders in the field which will provide just that. It explains, in a clear and comprehensible manner, how we stay comfortable by using our bodies, minds, buildings and their systems to adapt to indoor and outdoor conditions which change with the weather and the climate. The book is in two sections. The first introduces the principles on which the theory of adaptive thermal comfort is based. The second explains how to use field studies to measure thermal comfort in practice and to analyze the data gathered. Architects have gradually passed responsibility for building performance to service engineers who are largely trained to see comfort as the �product�, designed using simplistic comfort models. The result has contributed to a shift to buildings that use ever more energy. A growing international consensus now calls for low-energy buildings. This means designers must first produce robust, passive structures that provide occupants with many opportunities to make changes to suit their environmental needs. Ventilation using free, natural energy should be preferred and mechanical conditioning only used when the climate demands it. This book outlines the theory of adaptive thermal comfort that is essential to understand and inform such building designs. This book should be required reading for all students, teachers and practitioners of architecture, building engineering and management � for all who have a role in producing, and occupying, twenty-first century adaptive, low-car

Closing the Loop: Benchmarks for Sustainable Buildings is an authoritative guide to the issues and techniques behind benchmarking sustainable construction. It describes how to measure and achieve sustainability in construction. It contains a palette of issues, indicators and benchmarks, techniques, methods and tools - assembled from practice in the UK and around the world - that will give designers, developers and occupants an overview and understanding of the complex challenges they face to deliver truly 'sustainable' buildings. The book describes the range of sustainable design options and the various tools and techniques that can be used to investigate their success, all with the aim of enabling a more holistic approach to what currently is a fragmented development system.

Closing the Loop: Benchmarks for Sustainable Buildings

Arts & Photography

Architecture

RIBA Publishing

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Roaf, Susan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Roaf, Susan

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Roaf, Susan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Adaptive Thermal Comfort: Foundations and Analysis

Adaptive Thermal Comfort: Principles and Practice: Principles and practice

Adaptive Thermal Comfort: Foundations and Analysis

Adaptive Thermal Comfort: How to Design Comfortable Buildings

Adaptive Thermal Comfort: Principles and Practice: Principles and practice

Closing the Loop: Benchmarks for Sustainable Buildings