"Renewable energy is the answer… but what was the question? Do planners design for people’s needs?" is the title of Wolfgang Kessling's key note lecture on Friday 5th of October at the ISEC – International Sustainable Energy Conference 2018 in Graz:
Common practice in many countries is to design air conditioned buildings that operate at 22 °C to 24 °C all year, satisfying the stringent specifications outlined in the established thermal comfort standards. The derived ‘static’ comfort standards tend to prefer lower temperatures and low air speeds as achieved with conventional air-conditioning techniques. Being developed in mid-latitude climates, the standards do not recognize people’s preference for higher temperatures and air movement in warm and tropical zones. The lecture will address findings or recent research on adaptive comfort and project examples with hybrid system design showcasing that the energy demand can be reduced by 50% without compromising thermal comfort.
Since many years Wolfgang and his team are developing projects to improve outdoor comfort in urban settings. He has managed high profile international projects of different scale and complexity realizing sustainable design vision which resulted in celebrated architecture as well as adaptive comfort projects with focus on practical and context sensitive solutions.