Transcript Comfort paradigms and practices

Comfort paradigms & practices
Heather Chappells & Elizabeth Shove
Lancaster University
Department of Sociology
Meanings of ‘comfort’

A physical condition, a feeling of
contentment or a sense of well-being

Changing associations over time (e.g.
fresh air school or ac office)

Cultural diversity (from 6 to 31
degrees C)
Comfort paradigms
Theory of
comfort
PHYSIOLOGICAL
ADAPTIVE
Defining
comfort
Determining
comfort
Achieving
sustainable
comfort
Biological
heat
balance
Definable
universal
condition
Laboratory
experiments
Provide
comfortable
conditions
efficiently
Physiological/
behavioural
adaptation
Definable
condition
Field studies
Provide
adaptive
opportunities
Matter of
cultural
& historical
convention
Ethnographic
enquiries
Facilitate
diversity
Social and
SOCIAL
cultural
CONVENTION experience
Physiological
Natural climate
as the enemy of
human
productivity a threat to be
kept at bay
Protected indoor
environments
People as passive
bodies with fixed needs
Standardised
conditions (22OC) thermal monotony
Adaptive
Modify the
external
climate:
mediate and
transform but
not exclude
Variable indoor
environments
Self-regulating and
active bodies
Indoor conditions that
‘float’ with external
conditions and permit a
variety of experience
Social convention
Mediated indoor environments
People as social beings
Thermal needs & indoor conditions
defined by socio-cultural and sociotechnical worlds in which they are
constructed and reproduced
From 6 to 30 degrees C
Comfort ‘making’ today

Architects, services engineers, building regulators,
air-conditioning manufacturers, property
developers, facilities managers

How different ideas about comfort inform
processes of decision-making and how these
become embodied in particular buildings,
environments or spaces.

The entire system of comfort-making: from concept
through design, specification, construction, use,
maintenance & evaluation
Key issues

How and why have meanings & expectations of
comfort changed & with what implications for living
& working conditions?

How have standards and regulations promoted and
stabilised certain meanings of comfort and modes
of comfort provision?

How have different expectations of comfort
influenced the ways in which buildings are
constructed and used?

How might more sustainable interpretations of
comfort take root in the context of climate change?
Meanings of comfort
We see comfort as being a broader issue than just
thermal, that doesn’t mean that we can assess all those
other issues equally as well but at least it means that
we recognise that it might mean more than air
temperature or radiant temperature. We understand
that there are a number of theories of comfort out there
and that thermal comfort is just one of a number of
parameters to be considered. We understand that
comfort is physiological and psychological and we try
wherever possible to be as adventurous with both or
consider both.
Extract from interview with Building Engineer
Changing user expectations of comfort

Extension of air-conditioning
to all realms of life - cars,
shops & offices

Expectation of domestic
cooling as part of this trend changing expectation of
what comfort is in homes

Policy makers legitimising
air-conditioning through
promoting efficiency
Comfort standards
If you take an air-conditioned building you would
generally have a specification which would be
following the British Council of Offices which is
pretty rigid or CIBSE, so you would look at
standards and I don’t think there’s a lot of debate
about that. The debate comes when you say ‘well
we’re not going to air condition’ or ‘we’re going to
do a mixed-mode building which will float’, what will
people put up with?
Extract from interview with building engineer
Diminishing flexibility
COMFORT-MAKING TOOLKIT
Client
expectations
Designer
experiences
Perceived user
needs
Building
codes
Social
conventions
Technical
standards
Natural ventilation
‘Looser’ criteria
28 degrees OK
Mechanical control
‘Tight’ criteria
22 degrees C
Mixed-mode
There comes a point in any construction phase
where you stop dithering and contemplating
you’re options and you go for a specific option.
And once you’ve got to that stage you can’t
suddenly say ‘lets go nat vent’ once you’ve made
decisions…I think you’ll find that there are some
very fundamental choices about the form of a
building that are made and once you’ve made
them you can’t flip from one to the other…You
know if you’re going to have lots of operable
windows you’re going to have a different [thermal]
mass than a building you’re trying to isolate
Extract from interview with building engineer
Diversity in expectation

Diverse expectations of comfort
associated with different environments
(e.g.schools, homes, hospitals, offices,
trains)

Influences levels of precision & control
required (scope for individual or collective
thermal regulation)

Cultural norms and conventions limiting
diversity
Responding to climate change
 Redefining standards
 Reinventing air-conditioning
 Re-evaluating ways of life
Comfort making in the UK
Theory of
comfort
PHYSIOLOGICAL
ADAPTIVE
SOCIAL
CONVENTION
Defining
comfort
Providing
prescribed
comfortable &
healthy conditions
Comfort as
alleviation of
discomfort
Questioning
legitimacy of
contemporary
social/building
conventions
Determining
comfort
More precision &
reinvention of
‘comfort cooling’
Specifying the
‘adaptive
range’
Opening new
conversations
about comfort
Achieving
sustainable
comfort
More efficient airconditioning
NV exemplars
& adaptive
standards
Promote diversity
in meanings,
experiences and
expectations
Future Comforts

Comfortable indoor environments a product of
specific contexts in which they are defined,
evaluated & achieved

Different socio-technical trajectories but
directions taken will depend on the dominance
of certain actors in shaping expectations &
norms

Danger of lock-in especially given longevity of
buildings
Issues to explore...
How different paradigms are inscribed in buildings of
today?
 What might prevent increasing reliance on energyintensive methods of indoor climate control?
 Are indoor climates converging around the world and
around whose ideas or models of comfort?
 What might it take to redefine current standards as
unacceptable for human well-being?
 How might new vocabularies of comfort and methods
of calculation take root?
