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Mainstreaming Personal Comfort Systems
Can the construction and property industries implement innovative practices and technologies to improve building performance and thermal comfort?
This series of perspectives considers personal comfort systems: decentralized building thermal control, in which occupants control their local environments with personal devices while the amount of central space conditioning (HVAC) is scaled back.
Personal Comfort Systems have been shown to improve thermal satisfaction and reduce energy demand. So why hasn't it been implemented? What are the barriers preventing its adoption? What can be done to overcome this?
In the context of the climate and energy crises, clothing can reduce the energy demand associated with thermal comfort.
How can this low-energy approach to personal thermal comfort be implemented?
The IOT can coordinate PCS & HVAC systems to improve energy efficiency.
Part of a a new series on Personal Comfort Systems: How barriers to this promising approach can be overcome.
First in a new series examining how barriers to this promising approach can be overcome.
Latest Commentaries
Climate Mitigation & Carbon Budgets: Research Challenges
Thomas Lützkendorf (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) explains how the research community has helped to change the climate change policy landscape for the construction and real estate sectors, particularly for mitigating GHG emissions. Evidence can be used to influence policy pathways and carbon budgets, and to develop detailed carbon strategies and implementation. A key challenge is to create a stronger connection between the requirements for individual buildings and the national reduction pathways for the built environment.
Decolonising Cities: The Role of Street Naming
During colonialisation, street names were drawn from historical and societal contexts of the colonisers. Street nomenclature deployed by colonial administrators has a role in legitimising historical narratives and decentring local languages, cultures and heritage. Buyana Kareem examines street renaming as an important element of decolonisation.