Green Sky Thinking Week and NHA

How can buildings be designed to provide good enough thermal comfort, in order to reduce energy demand and maintain or improve productivity? This was the subtext to Nicholas Hare Architects' event 'Are you sitting comfortably?' on 16 April, as part of Green Sky Thinking Week organised by Open City.

Key to this question are people and their ability to control or modify their own environment. The speakers Fergus Nichol, Ruth Rettie and Shaun Fitzgerald provided an engaging narrative that highlighted the importance of thermal comfort, but also the challenges that designers face to both properly understand what occupants need, or think they need, and also to provide the right sort of control strategies, or adaptive opportunities, that are effective in the real world. A considerable amount of research is being done, but it is clear that there remains much to learn about this complex but vital issue.