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Mainstreaming Personal Comfort Systems

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?

Clothing: The First Layer of Personal Comfort

In the context of the climate and energy crises, clothing can reduce the energy demand associated with thermal comfort.

Transition to Personal Comfort Systems

How can this low-energy approach to personal thermal comfort be implemented?

Personal Comfort Systems: Using Internet of Things for Optimization

The IOT can coordinate PCS & HVAC systems to improve energy efficiency.

Personal Comfort Systems: Lessons from the creation of the ‘Klimastuhl’

Part of a a new series on Personal Comfort Systems: How barriers to this promising approach can be overcome.

Mainstreaming Personal Comfort Systems (PCS)

First in a new series examining how barriers to this promising approach can be overcome.

Latest Commentaries

Integrating Nature into Cities

Increasing vegetation and green and blue spaces in cities can support both climate change mitigation and adaptation goals, while also enhancing biodiversity and ecological health. Maibritt Pedersen Zari (Auckland University of Technology) explains why nature-based solutions (NbS) must be a vital part of urban planning and design.

Co-ordinate Built Environment Research for the Public Good

Gavin Killip and Kate Simpson (Nottingham Trent University) propose a coordinated research programme of field trials to create a focus for iterative learning about outcomes in the built environment, for the public good. They explain why a transdisciplinary programme is needed and seven key characteristics of the programme are proposed.