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Future comforts: re-conditioning urban environmentsResearchers
Dr Elizabeth Shove
Heather Chappells Institution
Lancaster University Summary
of Project
Project Update
Researcher
Profiles
Researcher Contact Details
Publications
Annual
progress report - 2003 (pdf format)
Final
report (pdf format)
Project
website (University of Lancaster)
Summary Vast
quantities of energy are required to heat or cool buildings to provide what are
now regarded as acceptable standards of thermal comfort. Paradoxically, likely
responses to global warming, such as greater reliance on air-conditioning, threaten
to increase energy demand and emissions of CO2 and exacerbate rather than mitigate
climate change. This project examines the link between global warming and the
technologies and conventions of indoor environmental management. Starting from
the proposition that concepts of comfort are socially and technically constructed,
it examines the ambitions and approaches of practitioners and policy makers currently
involved in specifying the indoor climates of the future. What assumptions of
human 'need' are constructed and embedded in the built environment and with what
consequences for conventions of 'normality' and associated patterns of resource
intensity? The research, which involves a review of relevant literature, interviews
and interaction with key actors (in the UK), is designed to engender and inform
academic and non-academic debate about the future of the indoor climate and the
ways of life associated with it. The goal is to consider how comfort might be
defined and achieved under changing climatic conditions but in ways that do not
exacerbate recognised environmental problems. Background/rationale
Current technical specifications and norms suppose people to be comfortable at
around 22oC. For many building scientists, architects and engineers the environmental
challenge is therefore one of producing energy efficient buildings robust enough
to cope with climate change, yet able to deliver uniform conditions indoors whatever
the weather outside. However, historical and anthropological evidence shows that
people of different cultures have reported being comfortable in temperatures ranging
from 6 to 31oC. This suggests that comfort is not a universal physiological determined
condition and that the relation between indoor and outdoor climate change, and
the potential for adaptation or mitigation, is at heart a matter of social convention.
Acknowledging that there are alternative ways of understanding and defining comfort,
and hence of interpreting the environmental challenge ahead, this project collates
and maps different disciplinary perspectives on comfort and the future construction
of the indoor environment. It does so in order to reveal the social conventions
embedded in otherwise technical interpretations of human need, and in order to
better understand the long-term dynamics of indoor climate change. Key
research questions
Questions about human behaviour and environmental
adaptation and mitigation generally focus on what prompts individuals to adopt
more or less resource intensive means of meeting what seem to be non-negotiable
needs, including those for thermal comfort. Taking a different approach, this
project recognises that contemporary understandings of comfort are sociotechnically
constructed, taken-for-granted and widely shared. Levels of energy consumption
consequently depend upon the transformation of collective conventions about the
characteristics and qualities of a normal indoor environment. The project therefore
addresses the following questions: how are thermal 'needs' and norms defined,
how do they change, and how might more sustainable expectations of comfort take
root? Research
approach
Questions of thermal comfort have been addressed by building
scientists, urban planners, social scientists, historians and anthropologists
but there has been no concerted effort to bring these lines of enquiry together
or to analyse the different perspectives on offer. The three stages of the project
contribute to the development of a more interdisciplinary approach. The first
step is to collate and analyse literature on the history, specification and provision
of thermal comfort, to review different perspectives and lines of enquiry and
take stock of the social and technical issues at stake. The second step is to
record the views of property developers, manufacturers, research scientists, utility
managers and regulators currently involved in shaping the future of comfort in
the UK. Interviews with practitioners will help locate, compare, and better understand
the ambitions and expectations of those in a position to influence the co-evolution
of comfort-related technology and practice. The third step is to organise a workshop
in which relevant interest groups, identified during the previous stages of the
project, come together to consider the definition and provision of comfortable
conditions within the built environment. Intended
outcomes
In focusing on the social and technical construction and
transformation of thermal comfort this project promises to make an important contribution
to debates about human activity, urban systems and environmental change. Specifically
the project will: - Engender
and inform research and debate about climate change, comfort, and the future of
the indoor environment.
-
Review the ambitions and perspectives of those in a position to influence the
social and technical specification and provision of comfort and pattern of energy
demand.
-
Build an interdisciplinary research agenda spanning building and social science
and involving historians, anthropologists, architects, planners and engineers.
-
Develop theories of social, technical and environmental change that go beyond
individual models of human behaviour, decision-making and choice.
Project
Update - October 2003 The "Future Comforts" project
started at the beginning of April 2003 and will run to the end of March 2004.
The aim of the project is to explore social conventions of thermal comfort and
implications for the sustainability of the indoor environment in the context of
global climate change. The project comprises three sets
of activities: - Collating and analysing existing literature on the
history, specification and provision of thermal comfort in order to review different
interdisciplinary perspectives and lines of enquiry and take stock of the social
and technical issues at stake.
- Recording the views of practitioners involved
in the specification and construction of buildings in order to locate, compare,
and better understand the ambitions and expectations of those in a position to
influence the co-evolution of comfort-related technology and practice.
- Organising
a workshop in which relevant interest groups, identified during the previous stages
of the project, will come together to consider the definition and provision of
comfortable conditions within the built environment.
In line with
the first objective, we have reviewed cross-disciplinary work on comfort and produced
a substantive annotated bibliography (comprising over 150 references) designed
to stimulate debate and provide a useful resource for other researchers in the
field. This bibliography and a literature review paper "Comfort: a review
of paradigms, philosophies and practices" will be available on a project
web-site by the end of October. Papers reporting the findings of this literature
review exercise have been presented at three events: the British Sociological
Association (BSA) annual conference in York (April 2003); the Environment and
Human Behaviour programme "What is the Environment" seminar organised
as part of the ESRC’s Social Science Week (June 2003); and, the annual meeting
of the UK’s Thermal Comfort Interest Group at UMIST (September 2003). Another
paper looking at changing conceptualisations of comfort and the challenge for
sustainable consumption will shortly be published as part of an edited collection. In
terms of our second objective, we are currently interviewing key practitioners
from the building industry. So far we have talked to air-conditioning manufacturers,
building services engineers, BSRIA, BRE and the Energy Savings Trust. Further
interviews are planned for October with representatives from RIBA, ODPM - Building
Regulations Division, CIRIA and the Electricity Association. We have also attended
a number of meetings organised by the UK’s Thermal Comfort Interest Group which
has enabled us to identify the relevant actors involved in the specification of
thermal standards for buildings in the UK and to take stock of their roles and
objectives with regard to current and future developments. In addition, we have
been involved in the development of an EPSRC proposal for a Thermal Comfort Consortium
Group. We expect that parts 1 and 2 of the project will be completed by
the end of October. The remaining task is to organise a workshop designed to bring
together academics and building practitioners to debate the future of comfort
in the indoor environment. The workshop will take place in February at the Policy
Studies Institute in London. In preparation for this event a discussion paper,
reporting the findings of the interviews conducted in part 2 will be prepared
and circulated to participants during November/December. It is anticipated that
papers presented at the workshop will be published as a special edition of the
journal Energy and Buildings. The final two months of the project will be set
aside for this purpose and for the production of the ESRC final report.
Researchers 
Dr Elizabeth Shove
Elizabeth
Shove is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University.
She has been responsible for a number of research projects relating to energy
use, consumption and practice and is author of A Sociology of Energy, Buildings
and the Environment (with Simon Guy), and of Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience:
the Social Organization of Normality. She co-ordinated a five-year programme of
workshops and summer schools on 'Consumption, Everyday Life and Sustainability'
and is now involved in a number of projects that have to do with the relation
between ordinary technologies, routines, habits and practices. 
Heather Chappells
Heather
Chappells is currently completing her PhD in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster
University. She has worked as a research associate on projects including: "Smart
Metering and Sustainable Cities" (Newcastle University, EPSRC, 1996-1998) and
"Domestic Consumption and Utility Services" (Lancaster University, EU, 1997-2000).
Heather was co-ordinator of a workshop on "Infrastructures, Consumption and the
Environment" (www.sls.wau.nl/es/infra),
funded by the European Science Foundation (ESF), and in 1999/2001 co-organised
ESF summer schools on "Consumption, Everyday Life and Sustainability" (www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/esf).
Her current research interests focus on the restructuring of infrastructure networks
and the social and technical construction of demand.  Contact
Details Dr Elizabeth Shove
Department of Sociology
Cartmel College
Lancaster University
Lancaster LA1 4YL
Heather
Chappells
Department of Sociology
Cartmel
College
Lancaster University
Lancaster LA1 4YL
Publications Project
Update (pdf)
October 2003 The
Environment and the Home (pdf)
October 2003 Changing
human behaviour and lifestyle: a challenge for sustainable consumption? (pdf)
August 2003 | |
