Comfort and Perception in Architecture

This book discusses the design of comfortable buildings and shows that design perception and, as a result, comfort should be an intentional feature of architectural design. Modern buildings are often sealed boxes without operable windows or daylighting design. However, contemporary designers increasingly find themselves faced with the task of creating spaces that are comfortable in terms of thermal and visual aspects.

Dr. Alstan Jakubiec is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto where he focuses his efforts on the design of buildings and cities with emphases on human comfort, performance simulation, and low-energy design strategies. He believes that through data-driven processes, designers can create comfortable built environments that will support social interaction, require less energy, and last longer before being razed. Alstan co-created the popular DIVA tool for calculating the daylighting and energy performance of buildings and cities and actively develops new software tools as part of his research.