Routledge Handbook of Resilient Thermal Comfort

This book brings together some of the finest academics in the field to address important questions around the way in which people experience their physical environments, including temperature, light, air-quality, acoustics and so forth. It is of importance not only to the comfort people feel indoors, but also the success of any building as an environment for its stated purpose. The way in which comfort is produced and perceived has a profound effect on the energy use of a building and its resilience to the increasing dangers posed by extreme weather events, and power outages caused by climate change. Research on thermal comfort is particularly important not only for the health and well-being of occupants but because energy used for temperature control is responsible for a large part of the total energy budget of the built environment.

In recent years there has been an increasing focus on the vulnerabilities of the thermal comfort system; how and why are buildings failing to provide safe and agreeable thermal environments at an affordable price? Achieving comfort in buildings is a complex subject that involves physics, behaviour, physiology, energy conservation, climate change, and of course architecture and urban design. Bringing together the related disciplines in one volume lays strong, multi-disciplinary foundations for new research and design directions for resilient 21st century architecture. This book heralds workable solutions and emerging directions for key fields in building the resilience of households, organisations and populations in a heating world.

"The comprehensive body of research that the editors have complied in the Handbook of Resilient Thermal Comfort collectively provides a wealth of constructive insights and lessons for the design of more resilient buildings. It justifies the importance of supporting greater inhabitant agency. Although these represent the central focus, this volume points to a much broader perspective on the roles and responsibilities of building design professionals and therefore provides them with a valuable resource. As a handbook, they may selectively review those chapters of more direct relevance to their interests. The electronic version, and its attendant search capability, is particularly useful for this." - Ray Cole, Professor University of British Columbia, Canada, reviewing in Buildings & Cities

"This is a very rich and engaging monograph on resilient comfort, which integrates the research achievement of researchers from many countries over a long period of time and is what makes it so valuable. I would highly recommend this book to Chinese researchers and students studying adaptive thermal comfort." ? Yingxin Zhu, Professor Tsinghua University, China

"In an age of climate change, we need to re-examine how we build. Resilient Comfort will add immeasurably to our understanding of how to design for safe conditions in buildings during temperature extremes and power outages." ? Alex Wilson, Resilient Design Institute, New York, USA

"The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to consider the airborne transmission of viruses as never before. Ventilation of enclosed spaces must be revolutionised - dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Just when most needed, this book highlights the nuances of indoor ventilation, balanced against thermal comfort, energy costs and building resilience." ? Stephanie Dancer, Consultant Microbiologist, Lanarkshire, Scotland

"I am confident that this book will provide a vital contribution to the development of a carbon neutral society, and provide new thinking about healthier building design after the COVID-19 crisis. The philosophy of this book is that ?Human Adaptive Behaviour? will help to solve these problems." ? Shin-Ichi Tanabe, President of the Architectural Institute of Japan

"There is a wealth of knowledge in these pages! More vast than a single conference proceeding, this is an impressive compilation of global voices sharing their collective research wisdom spanning yurts to high-tech offices, passive to active systems, and offering valuable lessons learned for more resilient building design and policy." ? Gail Brager, University of California, Berkeley, USA

"In a research domain crowded with countless engineering and architecture meetings each year, the Windsor Comfort Conferences were unique in their positioning of the occupant at the very centre of the built environment. Unfortunately, the grand finale of that celebrated series was abruptly cancelled when the UK Prime Minister officially declared the COVID-19 pandemic, literally just days before the opening speeches were scheduled in Windsor in April 2020. This volume contains a distillation of the latest occupant-centric comfort research from around the world. With established thought leaders and young research innovators alike, the volume?s list of contributors represents a veritable who?s who of thermal comfort researchers at a point in history when the subject of their enquiries is more significant and consequential than ever before." ? Richard de Dear, University of Sydney, Australia

"The great Samuel Johnson once said 'to be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends.' In my experience that requires being neither too hot nor too cold, and this book is full of thoughts on how to accomplish that while simultaneously keeping the planet from overheating. It's of great value!" ? Bill McKibben, Founder of the Climate Campaign Group 350.org