Adaptive Thermal Comfort

‘Even as the climate warms, so too does the debate about thermal comfort in buildings. Adaptive Thermal Comfort: At the Extremes is appropriately hard-hitting and insightful – a true guide for hotter times ahead.’

Jonathon Porritt, writer and campaigner, president of The Conservation Volunteers and Population Matters

‘We can’t air-condition our way out of the climate crisis – this book is an essential manifesto for designing a resilient future, showing how our bodies, buildings, and cultures must adapt to a heating world.’

Prashant Kapoor, chief industry specialist, Green Buildings and Cities, Climate Business Department, IFC

‘This is a truly stupendous piece of work covering all dimensions of the question of thermal comfort in buildings –historical time, location, built space and the challenge of Climate Change. A must read for designers and researchers for an urgently needed “reset” for theory and practice.’

Ashok Lall, principal of Ashok B Lall Architects, Delhi, India

‘How wonderful to read a book on science that is written so clearly: for in a time of adjustment we need plain speaking… As Sue Roaf says: “the first step to escaping from an echo chamber is to realise that you are in one.” May this book assist you to thrust the window of your enclosed space wide open and brave this world which created you – if you can find one that opens!’

Phil Harris, Troppo Architects

‘Many congratulations on this new book. It’s brimming with ideas related to radically cutting carbon in the face of the drastic rates of climate change we are now caught in.’

Aubrey Meyer, The Global Commons Institute, UK

‘Adaptive Thermal Comfort: At the Extremes is a provocative reading of how comfort has been defined, captured, codified, exported and enforced in our built environment – with highly uncomfortable results for our heating world. We are honored that our projects have been identified as exemplars for localized, adaptable and culturally attuned comfort. This book is a necessary critique of how we got here and offers actionable suggestions for designers, professionals and policy-makers moving forward.’

Richard Hassell, WOHA, Singapore

Susan Roaf

Susan Roaf is Emeritus Professor of Architectural Engineering at Heriot Watt University. Raised in Malaysia and the Australian bush and educated in Britain, she has lived and worked as an architect, anthropologist, and archaeologist in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, California, and Antarctica. These experiences inform her unique understanding of buildings and comfort in different climates and cultures, inspiring her work on adapting buildings and cities to a heating world. She pioneered UK building–integrated solar technologies and eco-design. Along with Fergus Nicol and Michael Humphreys, she has promoted adaptive thermal comfort globally. Her expertise in ancient technologies has informed some of her 23 books and other publications, all aimed at better understanding performance in the past, present, and future.

Fergus Nicol

Fergus Nicol is an award-winning leader in the field of adaptive thermal comfort. He began his career as a physicist at the Building Research Establishment in the 1960s. He then worked with the UK Medical Research Council and taught before leaving to start the radical bookshop Bookmarks. Returning to research in 1992, he is now Emeritus Professor at several universities and a top-cited scholar across his many publications. He led influential pan-European and Pakistan studies on comfort and leads NCEUB, the Network for Comfort and Energy Use in Buildings. He co-founded and ran the Windsor Conferences on Comfort and is internationally respected for his support of fellow researchers and students.

Michael Humphreys

Michael Humphreys is known for his pioneering work on the adaptive approach to comfort. He served as Head of Human Factors at the Building Research Establishment and has been a Research Professor at Oxford Brookes University. His scientific interests include the methodology of field studies of environmental comfort, the structure and statistical modelling of human adaptive behaviour, and the interactions between various aspects of the indoor environment.