Building Design is at a crossroads in our heating world. Today many modern buildings fail to keep their occupants comfortable during more extreme weather. A revolution in design thinking is essential as we prepare for the even worse climates of the future with new ways of staying affordably and thermally safe and healthy indoors. This book is a compendium of information on thermal comfort in buildings. It provides a clear overview of the complexity of the challenges faced in reducing energy use in buildings and emissions from them in humanities’ multitude of different cultures and climates. Buildings are a major and growing driver of climate change not least because of the global trend towards an overdependence on mechanical systems to provide comfort indoors. European and American industries have used international standards and regulations to persuade legislators around the world that ‘Western’ conditions for comfort are universally correct and are essential for the buildings of those committed to being part of global markets. That focus on mechanical efficiency has resulted in decades of buildings that are increasingly poorly adapted to local climates and lifestyles and are unable to protect occupants when electricity grids fail. Buildings in the future will have to run for as long as possible on local natural energy and this book outlines how that modal shift forwards to hybrid or mixed-mode buildings might happen and how low-cost and low-impact comfort can be achieved through good basic design that can also provide high amenity value and thermal delight in and around buildings.

The theory of Adaptive Thermal Comfort states that people adapt to those temperatures they normally occupy, and if they become uncomfortable due to a change in conditions they tend to change themselves, or their surroundings to return to comfort if they are able and can afford to. The book explains how comfort is ultimately the result of a conversation between people and their environments. This is the third of three volumes that builds on the practical and theoretical foundations of the subject laid out in the first two volumes. It builds on the authors global perspectives and experiences to lend shape to an emerging roadmap for re-imagining the design and construction of adaptable and resilient buildings, and a re-shaping of the expectations and behavioural lifestyle changes needed to prepare humanity to survive and thrive comfortably in the very different weather and climates ahead.