Last week in the UK was the 8th Windsor Conference, and international event held from 10th – 13th of April in Windsor.
Organised by the nceub – Network for Comfort and Energy Use in Buildings
Edited by Prof Fergus Nicol, Prof Susan Roaf, Dr Luisa Brotas and Prof Rev Michael Humphreys.
Supported by London Metropolitan University , CASS and Heriot-Watt University.
There was a broad range of specialists involved with thermal issues, modelling and practical research and perceived comfort. It was interesting to listen to the complexities surrounding thermal comfort, temperature, humidity, activity of the user etc. It was clear that inadition to thermal / temperature issues, all the indoor environmental issues such as; lighting, air quality, humidity, acoustics and colours should be more integrated in the long term so there can be balanced sustainable outcomes. Interestingly acoustics was often a consideration with more specific focus during Session 5 which included a had a focus on Lighting, acoustics and building physics.
Two acoustic focused presentations where:
John Goins from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory:
On finding balance between collabourative noise and speech privacy in open offices.
Pierre Lombard from Saint-Gobain:
Measure and model of free hanging sound absorbers impact on thermal comfort.
Poster pdf available here 20140413.Poster_Windsor.
Outline from the conference programme:
…..For many the costs of providing acceptable indoor temperatures have become prohibitive. Do organisations cut
back on plant operation times or widen the range of acceptable working temperatures in their work places? Despite
increasingly sophisticated simulation predictions buildings too often still overheat. At some point the serious
challenge of achieving reductions in energy consumption and carbon emissions must be faced without
compromising the comfort, health, well-being and productivity of building occupants….. for more on this visit the Windsor 2014 conference website here
