Bringing energy-hungry buildings up to date

As buildings evolve from energy consumers to energy producers, architecture is seeing a major paradigm shift, with building renovations becoming a real challenge. EPFL researchers explore this fundamental issue in a new book and course. Acoustics, heating and air conditioning are key factors in a building's design - and a major conundrum for architects tasked with creating energy-efficient buildings. Similar challenges arise when renovating older structures built when energy consumption was not a worldwide concern. Comfort and comfort-related technologies are still neglected in the history of 20th-century architecture, but EPFL intends to remedy this through a new book and course. Two researchers from the Laboratory of Techniques and Preservation of Modern Architecture (TSAM) have created a new field of study: the "history of comfort." Giulia Marino, an EPFL scientist, was awarded the prize for best EPFL doctoral thesis in 2016 for her work in this area. Next semester, she will teach a master's course on this subject to architecture students.