After Comfort: A User’s Guide - e-flux

Editors Daniel A. Barber, Jeannette Kuo, Ola Uduku, Thomas Auer, Nick Axel, Nikolaus Hirsch

Contributors Daniel A. Barber, Jeannette Kuo, Ola Uduku, Thomas Auer, e-flux Architecture, Aleksandra Kędziorek, Roger Boltshauser, Matthias Peterseim, Soha Macktoom, Nausheen H. Anwar, and more…

The fossil fuel era is ending rapidly. The International Energy Agency has indicated that global use of fossil fuels will peak by the end of the 2020s. However, the projected data looks more like a cliff than a pinnacle, whose long, flat plateau will stretch decades into the future. This is in part because of the ways that fossil fuel use is locked into buildings and has become integral to so many aspects of our lifestyles. As a result, we cannot just “build more efficiently” to stem the extraction of fossil fuels. Rather, the duration of fossil fuel dependency is in large part determined by how rapidly and radically existing buildings can be decarbonized.

After Comfort: A User’s Guide is a project by e-flux Architecture in collaboration with the University of Technology Sydney, the Technical University of Munich, the University of Liverpool, and Transsolar.

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8 essays

The Ethics of Use: Repurposing Debenhams

Simone Ferracina

Architects and designers tend to think of themselves as agents of change and innovation, yet what they do is overwhelmingly reactionary. Indeed, design mobilizes and transforms disparate objects and materials towards one another, unlocking their ability to communicate and interact.

How to Skin a Rabbit

Muoto

The environmental crisis could lead to the emergence of a new, strange form of communion between beings and things. But up until now, the opposite has happened.

Solutions of Concern

Rachael Wakefield-Rann

The modernist optimism that saw the advent of air-conditioning, mass produced materials, standardized buildings, and global distribution networks is predicated on the illusion that we have transcended our ecologies. However, as we have continued on this trajectory, our bubbles have come to seem increasingly porous.

The Urgency of Stewardship

Marc Angélil and Cary Siress

Despite all design intentions, nothing ever goes as planned. Everything eventually breaks down. Ultimately, whatever is there will have to be fixed.

Heatscapes and Evolutionary Habitats

Soha Macktoom, Nausheen H. Anwar, and Mariam Ahmad

In the design of Karachi’s largest public university, notions of identity and specific visions of development have long overshadowed conversations about thermal comfort and heat exposure.

Three Theses on Hybrid Ecological Comfort

Roger Boltshauser and Matthias Peterseim

This paradigm of site-specificity was eliminated with the introduction of fossil-fuel driven HVAC. However, dealing with local climates has not been totally forgotten; even celebrated modern architects like Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn made efforts to adapt to different climate zones.

The Clothed Home

Aleksandra Kędziorek

The Hansen family clothed and unclothed their home according to the rhythm of the seasons. During heatwaves, they would place a tulle curtain in the doorway. During frosty weather, a thick, quilted fabric was nailed to the front door to insulate the hall.

Editorial

Daniel A. Barber, Jeannette Kuo, Ola Uduku, Thomas Auer, and e-flux Architecture

After Comfort: A User’s Guide is a project by e-flux Architecture in collaboration with the University of Technology Sydney, the Technical University of Munich, the University of Liverpool, and Transsolar.

Subject

Climate change, Environment

Contributors

Daniel A. Barber, Jeannette Kuo, Ola Uduku, Thomas Auer, and e-flux Architecture Editorial
Aleksandra Kędziorek The Clothed Home
Roger Boltshauser and Matthias Peterseim Three Theses on Hybrid Ecological Comfort
Soha Macktoom, Nausheen H. Anwar, and Mariam Ahmad Heatscapes and Evolutionary Habitats
Marc Angélil and Cary Siress The Urgency of Stewardship
Rachael Wakefield-Rann Solutions of Concern
Muoto How to Skin a Rabbit
Simone Ferracina The Ethics of Use: Repurposing Debenhams

Category

Subject