Dynamics of Delight

     Recently, Lisa Hechong, author of Thermal Delight of Architecture, spoke on the dynamics of thermal delight. Her research began thirty-five years ago when the first energy crisis hit and there was the concern with the rising cost of imported oil. She wondered that there has to be a better way to heat and cool a space and started to research these ideas deeper in the specific types of energy that are necessary for the building, delight of the space to the inhabitant in terms of thermal comfort, and the affection that reinforces the social ties. Since buildings currently use a lot of energy, thirty percent of all energy used in the country and sixty-seven percent of all electricity uses because the inhabitants want them to be uniform in temperature and one of the best ways to control the electrical use of artificial lighting is to think about natural sunlight into spaces. 

    Currently, lighting and Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) are designed for eighty percent comfort levels within a building, which means that seventy-nine percent of all people are comfortable with less.  One way to work with comfort levels is to allow occupants to control the thermal comfort of interior spaces of an office building because the satisfaction of the occupants increases to maximum performance. If more people are comfortable while doing their job, they will consistently be more active and more productive instead of being too warm or too cold in an office space.  Natural day lighting is an important factor that can make an important improvement in the quality of office spaces and using less electric lighting. By maximizing daylight, daylight can be echoed through office spaces and lets people feel like they are not confined into their work spaces. Heschong argued that if a designer was to use electric lighting, the designer should use the lighting as a focal point or a highly focused bright area that draws people’s attention. She also warned to never match daylight to electric light because natural lighting always is variable throughout the day but instead have the two be two different entities so that occupants of the building have different expectations from the lighting. By creating two different lighting entities, natural lighting and electric lighting, the occupants can enjoy the natural sunlight more, which ultimately will make them gravitate towards the better natural light because colors are saturated and true. 

    Another thermal delight strategy that Heschong talked about was having operational blinds to the windows which provide occupants to a building with control. When the occupants get to control the blinds, they get to decide how much natural sun lighting they want flowing into their space and how much electric lighting that they want to have. One problem that mechanic blinds have is that every time the sun hits the window, the blinds close fully, which causes occupants to feel claustrophobic about not being able to see outside. By providing choice to occupants, they personally get involved with their own thermal comfort, which in the long run is what is needed to help change the total amount of energy consumption of a building. Overall, a person spends ninety-five percent of their lifetime in a building so they should be able to control how much sunlight and how much of a view that they will want to see out from the window. One problem with too much natural sunlight is glare, which can ultimately make seeing objects harder. The future of natural sunlight systems is glare control and designing better products that produce better views with more sunlight that also preserves energy savings. Systems that preserve natural sunlight and prevent glare will only fully maximize thermal comfort of the occupants of a building.

    In conclusion, Lisa Heschong talked about how to best thermally comfort the users of a building. For example, people are thermally comforted while at work are more likely to be more productive at work and with natural day lighting, people do not have to feel claustrophobic by not being able to see the outside environment.  By using operational blinds, the occupants have full control of how thermally comforted they can be and since people spend ninety-five percent of their lives in buildings, why not make it the most thermally comforted space for them and let them have full control of how much natural sunlight is let into a space in order to reduce the total amount of electric lights being used.