Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design Lecture: Approaching human thermal comfort through environmentally responsive urban and architectural design
Date: 25/06/2019 Tuesday
Time, Place: 12:50, FFB-06
Lecturer: Dr. Andre Nouri
Approaching human thermal comfort through environmentally responsive urban and architectural design
In existing urban frameworks, microclimatic factors are already revealing thermal discomfort and health concerns during periods of more accentuated climatic stimuli. In addition to these existing pressing risk factors for human thermal comfort in indoor and outdoor environments, climate change projections indicate further exacerbations of these risk factors. Although ‘top-down’ assessments are imperative, professions such as architecture and urban design/planning are now also playing a vital role maturing ‘bottom-up’ approaches to address human thermal comfort standards. Resultantly, local environments have gained new meaning for interdisciplinary practices of environmental design and decision making when considering climatic safety, human thermal comfort, and the overall longevity/quality of urban frameworks. Focused upon how local human thermal comfort can be improved through interdisciplinary practices, this seminar presents an overview into the breadth between theory and application – and just as importantly, the tools for architects and urban designers to improve this essential interdisciplinary union.
Dr. Andre Nouri is an Urban Designer with an architectural background who specialises in the examination and improvement of urban local human thermal comfort thresholds. Such a research focus is centred upon the pursuit of improving/maturing in-situ interdisciplinary bottom-up adaptation approaches that can address both: (1) existing human biometeorological risk factors; and in addition, (2) those to be expected as a result of potential climate change impacts exacerbating these identified human thermo-physiological conditions. After working in the UK within the private and public sector, he obtained his PhD in Urbanism, at the Faculty of Architecture within the University of Lisbon, and is currently an associated Collaborative Researcher for the Research Centre for Architecture, Urbanism, and Design (CIAUD) at FAUL. In addition, he is a collaborator of numerous international research groups/projects, and has thus far published in numerous journals that cover a wide range of disciplines. He correspondingly has international teaching and lecturing experience in different institutions and at different levels, including different faculties in Lisbon – Portugal; within international workshops including in Bucharest – Romania; and, within the University of Auckland – New Zealand. His teaching and research experience spreads through various analytical scales, ranging from interior/architectural design to urban design/planning scales to inclusively address human thermal comfort standards in an era prone to climate change.