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Mainstreaming Personal Comfort Systems

Mainstreaming Personal Comfort Systems

Can the construction and property industries implement innovative practices and technologies to improve building performance and thermal comfort?

This series of perspectives considers personal comfort systems: decentralized building thermal control, in which occupants control their local environments with personal devices while the amount of central space conditioning (HVAC) is scaled back.

Personal Comfort Systems have been shown to improve thermal satisfaction and reduce energy demand. So why hasn't it been implemented? What are the barriers preventing its adoption? What can be done to overcome this?

Clothing: The First Layer of Personal Comfort

In the context of the climate and energy crises, clothing can reduce the energy demand associated with thermal comfort.

Transition to Personal Comfort Systems

How can this low-energy approach to personal thermal comfort be implemented?

Personal Comfort Systems: Using Internet of Things for Optimization

The IOT can coordinate PCS & HVAC systems to improve energy efficiency.

Personal Comfort Systems: Lessons from the creation of the 'Klimastuhl'

Part of a a new series on Personal Comfort Systems: How barriers to this promising approach can be overcome.

Mainstreaming Personal Comfort Systems (PCS)

First in a new series examining how barriers to this promising approach can be overcome.

Latest Commentaries

The current situation is implausible: there are pledges for 2030 but no roadmaps for their fulfilment over time. Image: Giovanna Cassavia (TU Graz).

To achieve net zero GHG emissions by mid-century (the Breakthrough Agenda) it is vital to establish explicit sector-specific roadmaps and targets. With an eye to the forthcoming COP30 in Brazil and based on work in the IEA EBC Annex 89, Thomas Lützkendorf, Greg Foliente and Alexander Passer argue why specific goals and measures for building, construction and real estate are needed in the forthcoming round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC 3.0).

A session from a participatory drawing workshop at the Rumi Library, led by Sadia Sharmin in 2019

While Living Labs are often framed as structured, institutionalised spaces for innovation, Sadia Sharmin (Habitat Forum Berlin) reinterprets the concept through the lens of grassroots urban practices. She argues that self-organised knowledge spaces can function as Living Labs by fostering situated learning, collective agency, and community resilience. The example of a Living Lab in Bangladesh provides a model pathway to civic participation and spatial justice.