Establishing resilience in times of climate change—a perspective on humans and buildings

Abstract

With a contribution of 40% to the annual global CO2-emissions, the built environment needs to drastically reduce its impact, while also providing pleasant and healthy indoor spaces and protecting people from weather extremes. Over time, particularly in western and industrialized countries, buildings have evolved to shield occupants almost completely from outdoor conditions. As a consequence, humans have become so used to a constant, comfortable indoor environment that we struggle to cope with thermal fluctuations. The time has come to shift perspective, as the very protective character of buildings and provision of omnipresent comfort are neither feasible nor desirable any longer. An enormous amount of energy and resources are spent to provide tightly controlled thermal environments, often with the same target temperature all year round. However, being mostly exposed to constant, comfortable indoor temperatures can have negative impacts on health and deteriorate our human capability to deal with thermal challenges. Importantly, spending time outside the thermal comfort zone is known to enhance human thermoregulatory capacities and thermal resilience, while also improving metabolic and cardiovascular health. This perspective essay aims to draw attention to novel and yet underrepresented avenues of coping with climate challenges, both with respect to the built environment and humans. Allowing more thermal variation indoors will save precious resources, decrease the negative impact of building CO2-footprints, and stimulate physiological and psychological adaptation in humans, which can lead to improved resilience and health.