Design with comfort: A systems and materials approach to expanded psychrometrics

Abstract

Air is a convenient medium for comfort, particularly when cooling and dehumidification are both requested, relying on the psychrometric relationships to dictate energy demand. Unfortunately, air, comfort, and psychrometrics have become entangled and conflated, allowing air conditioning and air-based heating to evolve as the de facto comfort methodologies during the 20th century. These systems have arguably enabled universal architectures, which fail to account for the concept that thermal comfort is not a universal thermostat setpoint, let alone dictated only by air conditions. Sustainable and truly holistic approaches to comfort requires a new comfort paradigm, moving beyond the key assumptions and measurement techniques that reinforce the success of air based systems without critically examining the thermal delivery mechanisms. In this dissertation, I critically examine nuances of heat transfer with respect to physiology and thermal comfort, from materials, sensors and novel systems to thermodynamics and perception.