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Book Cover
E-book
Author Nicol, Fergus, 1940-

Title Adaptive thermal comfort : principles and practice / Fergus Nicol, Michael Humphreys and Susan Roaf
Published London ; New York : Routledge, ©2012

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xx, 173 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations (some color), maps (some color
Contents List of illustrations -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- List of abbreviations -- Part I. Principles: building an adaptive model -- 1. Thermal comfort: why it is important -- 1.1. User satisfaction -- 1.2. Energy consumption -- 1.3. Standards, guidelines and legislation for indoor temperature -- 1.4. Adaptation -- 1.5. Comfort outdoors and in intermediate spaces -- 2. Thermal comfort: the underlying processes -- 2.1. Physiology -- 2.2. Psychophysics -- 2.3. Physics -- 2.4. Behaviour -- 2.5. Equations for heat balance in the human body -- 3. Field studies and the adaptive approach -- 3.1. Field surveys of thermal comfort -- 3.2. Post-occupancy surveys -- 3.3. Comfort and indoor temperature: the basic adaptive relationship -- 3.4. Outcomes: indoor comfort and outdoor temperature -- 3.5. The basis of the adaptive model: using surveys to understand comfort -- 3.6. Opening the black box -- 3.7. Adaptive comfort and non-standard buildings -- 3.8. The challenge of climate change -- 3.9. Lessons of the adaptive model for ensuring thermal comfort -- 3.10. An example: naturally ventilated office in summer -- 4. The heat balance approach to defining thermal comfort -- 4.1. The heat balance approach -- 4.2. Problems with the analytical approach -- 4.3. Differences between the results from empirical and analytical investigations -- 5. Standards, guidelines and legislation for the indoor environment -- 5.1. The origin and purpose of standards for indoor climate -- 5.2. International comfort standards today -- 5.3. Discussion of international standards -- 5.4. Legislation -- 5.5. Standards and productivity -- 5.6. Standards and overheating in buildings -- 5.7. The way forward for comfort standards -- 6. Low-energy adaptive buildings -- 6.1. Building design and adaptive comfort -- 6.2. Historic flaws with the mechanical approach to providing comfort -- 6.3. Designing more appropriate buildings -- Appendix: How to make a Nicol graph -- Part II. Practice: conducting a survey in the field and analysing the results -- 7. What sort of survey? -- 7.1. Introduction -- 7.2. The complexity of your survey -- 7.3. Post occupancy evaluation of buildings (POE) -- 8. Instruments and questionnaires -- 8.1. Physical measures -- 8.2. Personal variables -- 8.3. Subjective measures -- 8.4. Other subjective measures -- 8.5. Thermal behaviour -- 8.6. The comfort questionnaire -- Appendix: An example of a longitudinal questionnaire -- 9. Conducting a field study -- 9.1. Choosing a subject population and their environment -- 9.2. Choosing a subject sample -- 9.3. How many observations from each subject and how many subjects? -- 9.4. Time sampling -- 9.5. The data set -- 9.6. Taking the measurements -- 9.7. Lack of variation in the temperature and comfort vote -- 10. Analysis and reporting of field study data -- 10.1. Looking at the data -- 10.2. Simple statistics -- 10.3. More complex statistical methods -- 10.4. Some common problems encountered and some mistakes to avoid -- 10.5. Writing up your results -- List of symbols -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary The fundamental function of buildings is to provide safe and healthy shelter. For the fortunate they also provide comfort and delight. In the twentieth century comfort became a 'product' produced by machines and run on cheap energy. In a world where fossil fuels are becoming ever scarcer and more expensive, and the climate more extreme, the challenge of designing comfortable buildings today requires a new approach
This timely-book is the first in a trilogy from leaders in the field which will provide just that. It explains, in a clear arid comprehensible manner, how we stay comfortable by using our bodies, minds, buildingsand their systems to adapt to indoor and outdoor conditions, which change with the weather and theclimate. The book is in two sections. The first introduces the principles on which the theory of adaptivethermal comfort is based. The second explains how to use field studies to measure thermal comfort inpractice and to analyse the data gathered
Architects have gradually passed responsibility for building performance to service engineers who are largely trained to see comfort as the 'product', designed using simplistic comfort models. The result has contributed to a shift to buildings that use ever more energy. A growing international consensus now calls for low-energy buildings. This means designers must first produce robust, passive structures that provide occupants with many opportunities to make changes to suit their environmental needs. Ventilation using free, natural energy should be preferred and mechanical conditioning only used when the climate demands it
This book outlines the theory of adaptive thermal comfort that is essential to understand and inform such building designs. This book should be required reading for all students, teachers and practitioners of architecture, building engineering and management-for all who have a role in producing, and occupying, twenty-first-century adaptive, low-carbon, comfortable buildings
Adaptive Thermal Comfort: Foundations and Analysis Humphreys, Nicol and Roaf
Adaptive Thermal Comfort: How to Design Comfortable Buildings Roaf, Nicol and Humphries
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 166-167) and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Buildings -- Environmental engineering.
Buildings -- Thermal properties.
Architecture -- Human factors.
Architecture and climate.
Architecture and climate
Architecture -- Human factors
Buildings -- Environmental engineering
Buildings -- Thermal properties
Form Electronic book
Author Humphreys, Michael A. (Michael Alexander), 1936-
Roaf, Susan
ISBN 9780203123010
0203123018
9781136336485
1136336486
9781136336430
1136336435
9781136336478
1136336478
1138430803
9781138430808