About Markidect
I am an architect with a broad interest in environmental design
My proposal is for energy related measures to be related much more to human behaviour. I have seen many excellent technical solutions which seem to perform poorly in operation because not enough thought has been put into the 'human factor'.
As an example of this I designed a naturally ventilated Primary Care Centre in the north-east of England. The rooflights/windows were designed with rain sensors to close during rain and this worked well when the caretaker was in the building as he went around after the shower to open them all again. However, he stopped working at 1pm and so staff were complaining about the ventilation in the afternoon. Now one ensured all the windows were open again.
I accept that some of this is about the education of building users, but some I feel is about making the technology smarter, so that it responds better to the behaviour of occupants. I think more research is required to map out some of these issues, so that designers can draw on a pool of information when making decisions about systems and design solutions.
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