The core reason Shay Brazier and Jo Woods chose to build a house was because they wanted a home that was comfortable to live in. Refusing to believe that a house either had to be good for the environment or comfortable for its inhabitants, the couple knew they could achieve both these things through the use of good design and the right products.
People’s understanding of comfort is often vague and subjective, it means different things for different people. In an effort to articulate just what comfort meant for them, Shay and Jo set three broad comfort goals for the design of the Zero Energy House:
Additionally, they defined an acceptable temperature and humidity range for the house (see table below) guided by recognised standards on human comfort, but ultimately determined by a deep understanding of what felt right for them. The expectation was that this range would be met 95% of the occupied time.
These comfort goals were communicated to the design team in the Design Brief and tracked during the design process using thermal modelling.
Shay and Jo’s experience in the field of building design meant they had a clear understanding of what comfort was and of the impacts it could have on people. However, figuring out what comfort means is not always easy. In general terms comfort is defined as a state of physical ease and it’s influenced by a number of factors. The Center for the Built Environment has an online tool to calculate comfort levels based on six variables:
Out of the six variables that define comfort, the first four are environmental and are addressed at the Zero Energy House through design and the products used:
The last two factors on the list are related to people. For example, a duvet at night will increase a person’s clothing level, which means the air temperature can be slightly cooler without changing the degree of comfort.
Articulating what comfort meant to them and translating that understanding into qualitative and quantitative goals for the Zero Energy House, allowed Shay and Jo to communicate their expectations around comfort to the design team and keep track of them during the design. In the end, the best proof of their success is having a comfortable home built without compromising their ideals.
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