heschong's thermal delight.pdf

7/30/2019 Heschong's Thermal Delight.pdf

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Thermal Delight in Architecture

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Contents

Copyrightl979bY PrefaceThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology VIIAll rights reserved. Acknowledgments xiNo part of this book may be reproducedIn any form or by any means.electronic or mechanical, NecessityIncluding photocopying, recording.or by any information storage and retrieval system, Delight 18without permission in writingfrom the publisher. Affection 31Thisbook wasset in VIP Meridien Sacrednessby Achom Graphic Se~ices. tnc.. 50printed and bound byHailiday Lithograph Corporation Notesin the United States of America 73Library of Congress Cataloging In Publication DataHeschong. lisa.Thermal Delight In Architecture.I. Architecture and dimate.2. Vernacular architecture.t. Title.NA254t.H47 720.1 7920492

ISBN 0262 081016 (hardcover)ISBN o26258o394( (paperback)

MI~Y 211986


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Delight

People have a sense of warmth and coolness, a thermal senselike sigh t o r smell, although it is not normally counted in the traditional list of our five senses. It is usual ly included with other aspectsof the sense of touch. They are taken as one, probably because thethermal sense is located in our skin where our senses of touch andpressure also lie, or perhaps because we notice the temperature ofsomething most accurately when we touch it directly, that is, whenwe conduct heat to or from it. B ut the thermal sense is definitely aseparate sense, for we have special ized nerve end ings whose onlyfunction is to tell us if some part of our body is getting cooler orwarmer.

As with all our other senses, there seems to be a simple pleasurethat comes with just using it, letting it provide us with bits of information about the world around, using it to explore and leam, or justto notice. The stone is cool; yes, it feels cool when I touch i t; perhapsit has been in the shade for a while. The coffee cup is warm; it warmsmy hands. There is something very affirming of ones own life inbeing aware of these little pieces of information about the world outside us. When the sun is warm on my face and the breeze is cool. Iknow it is good to be alive.

There is a basic difference, however, between our thermal senseand all of our other senses. When our thermal sensors tell us an objectis cold, that object is already making us colder. If, on the other hand, I

look at a red object i t wont make me grow redder, nor will touching abumpy object make me bumpy. Thermal information is never neutral; it always reflects what is directly happening to the body. This isbecause the thermal nerve end ings are heat-flow sensors, no t temperature sensors. They can t te ll directly what the temperature ofsomething is; rather, they monitor how quickly our bodies are losingor gaining heat. From this information we judge how much colder orwarmer than body temperature an object is. For example, if I touch apiece of wood and a piece of metal that are both at room temperature,the metal will feel colder because it absorbs the heat from my handmore quickly.

As long as the temperature differential isnt very great, ourbodies can use one of their metabolic strategies to adapt to the newconditions and the thermal stimulus will no longer be noticeable,Thus, when I walk into a warm room. I notice at once how warm theair is. Within a few minutes, however, I have adjusted and the roomfeels normal. Or rather, I feel norma l in the room. We might draw aparallel with the fatigue experienced by the other senses (althoughthe mechanism is no t the same). We can only smell a rose for so longbefore the sme ll fades away. The sensors become saturated and attention moves on to new information. Our nervous system is muchmore attuned to noticing change in the environment than to noticingsteady states.

A proper gourmet meal has a wide variety of tastessalty.sweet, spicy, savoryso that the taste buds can be renewed and experience each flavor afresh. This renewal mechanism seems to beespecially active for the thermal sense when we experience a temperature change within the basic comfort zone. There is an extra delightin the delic ious comfort of a ba lmy spring day as I walk beneath a rowof t rees and sense the alternating warmth and coolness of sun andshade.


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We all love having our world full of colors, every color in therainbow and then some. Even though studies have shown blue to bethe most restful color, I doubt that anyone would put forth an argument for a monochromatic world. And ye t a steady-state thermal environment is the prevailing standard for office buildings, schools, andhomes across the United States. James Marston Fitch nicely sums upthis ideal: The technology of heating and cooling aims.. . to achievea thermal steady-state across time and a thermal equilibrium acrossspace. In other words a constant temperature everywhere, at alltimes. He goes on to note that Neither of these criteria is easy toachieve since radiant and ambient heat are very unstable forms ofenergy. Such uniformity is extremely unnatural and therefore requires a great deal of effort, and energy, to maintain. Engineers mustuse extremely sophisticated methods to ensure that every locationwithin an enormous office tower can be maintained at a constanttemperature and humidity.

It is not at all uncommon these days in Houston or Los Angelesto drive an air-conditioned car to an air~conditioned office to workuntil it is time to go to dinner in an air-conditioned restaurant beforeseeing a mov ie in an air.conditioned theater. Of course, there is thebrief inconvenience of a blast of hot air between the car and theoffice. To remedy th is , it is occasionally proposed that a large bubblebe put over the whole city, perhaps a pneumatic structure or one ofBuckminster Fullers domes. This climatic envelope would enable theentire city to be air condi tioned, indoors and outdoors. Indeed, outdoors would be a thing of the past. This approach is being consideredon a relatively small scale in the plans for a new General ServicesAdministration building in Colorado. A landscape of low rise structures will be contained within a transparent pneumatic bubble. Thebuildings will need no windows or doors or individual heating plantsbecause the entire landscape will be maintained at the same comfortable temperature.

The steady-state approach to the thermal environment assumesthat any degree of thermal stress is undesirable. A constant temperature is maintained in o rder to save people from the effort and the distraction of adjusting to different condit ions. And yet, in spite of theextra physiological effort required to adjust to thermal stimuli, peopledefinitely seem to enjoy a range of temperatures. Indeed, they frequently seek out an extreme thermal environment for recreation orvacations. This must explain in large part the love of the Finns fortheir saunas and the Japanese for their scalding hot baths. Americansflock to beaches in the summer to bake in the sun and travel greatdistances in the winter to ski on frosty mountain tops. People relishthe very hotness or coldness of these places.

We should note that all of these places of thermal extremeshave their opposites close at hand. The F inns make a practice ofjumping from the sauna into a snowbank or a cold lake. At the beach,after baking in the hot sun, there is the cold ocean to swim in. Theskier freezes on the slope, knowing all the while that the lodge waitsdown below with a roaring fire and some warming libation. There areprobably two reasons for having the ext remes right next to eachother. The first is physiological: the availability of extremes ensuresthat we can move from one to the other to maintain a thermal balance. This gives us the safety to enjoy fully both extremes. We can begreatly overheated for a while and then chil led to the bone, all without threatening our health. Indeed, proponents of the sauna claim iteven strengthens ones health and improves resistance to cold. H. J.Viherjuuri, a historian of the sauna, quotes an entertaining description by an Italian traveler of the eighteenth century who encounteredsome Finns after their sauna:

In winter they often go out completely naked and rollthemselves in the snow, while the temperature is 40

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in drink or food seems refreshing and cool regardless of what temperature it is. Similarly, in o rder to feel warm and cozy at night. manypeople find that they must have a heavy set of blankets to cover themwhile they sleep, even though one light fluffy quilt would be a betterinsulator. The pressure of the blankets conveys a feeling of warmthquite independent of their actual thermal qualities. An example related by Tetsuro Yoshida suggests that the Japanese are masters of thesubstitution of one sense for another. He reports: In the summer thehouseholder likes to hang a picture of a waterfall, a mountain stream.or similar view in the Tokonoma and enjoy in its contemplation afeeling of coolness.3

One of the magical things about our senses is that they do no tfunction in isolation. Each sense contributes to the fuller comprehension of other sensory information. Indeed, one may no t even be ableto understand the information from one sense properly until it can bere lated to information from other senses. For instance, a person blindfrom birth because of a congenital cataract, who then has sight restored by surgery, mus t learn to see. At first the field of vision consistsof light patterns, f lat and meaningless. Gradually specific light patterns are associated with the understanding of the world that waspreviously developed from the other senses. In order to learn to seethree dimensionally, one must touch, rotate, walk around things. Byassociating sight with bodily movement and touch, the brain beginsto perceive form and depth and perspective.

Looking at a photograph of a place. we are limited to purely visual clues about its thermal qualities, yet we still can perceive it to bea warm or a cool place, thermally pleasant or unpleasant. A picture ofa mosque in Isfahan, for example, with its polished marble floors andheavy masonry walls, its high airy vaults and deeply shaded recesses,looks invitingly cool and refreshing. Of course, we imagine it to be inthe hot desert sun of Iran. With a lmost the same set of visual cluesheavy masonry , smooth polished surfaces, high airy colonnadesa

building in Germany, such as one of the neoclassical governmentbuildings of the twenties and thirties, comes across as forbiddinglycold and inhospitable. Our visual perceptions might mislead us completely. Both places could conceivably be heated by a hidden radiantsystem. With our current technology the temperature of a place neednot be associated with the form of the building or the materials usedor the region where it is located. Bu t how unsatisfying is this dissociation of warmth or coolness from all of our other senses!

To enjoy being warmed or cooled we need some awareness ofthe process. Clearly, it is impossible to enjoy consciously what wedont notice; yet, most of the processes of heat flow take place belowour level of conscious sensation. Most of the mechanisms of cooling,for example, are especially subtle. Heat usually convects away fromour skin surfaces in air currents too gentle to discern. Similarly mostperspiration evaporates before we perceive our skin to be moist. Cluesfrom other senses can help make us more aware of thermal processes,enabling us to derive more enjoyment from them. For instance, thereare many ways to notice that the a ir is moving and helping to cool useven when it is too gent le to feel. Ho Hsun, a Chinese poet , expressedit well:

You cant see it or hear it,It is so soft. But it is strong enoughTo dust the mirror with pollen.And thrum the strings of the lute.4

Yoshida reports that in the hot and humid Japanese summerPeople like to hang a lantern or a wind chime under the roof of theveranda. The lightly swaying lantern or the ringing of the bell gives asuggestion of refreshing wind and coolness. In Persian gardens

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roses and jasmine and other fragrant flowers were p lanted in differentquarters so that when the breeze came, it came loaded with scents.

Many of the other sensory associations with cooling seem towant to remind us of something. like the breeze, lightly playing overa surface. Cooling sounds are light and high pitched, like the Japanese wind chimes or the splashing of water droplets in a fountain. Cool decorations move lightly over a surface, like the lattice workand laciness of a Victorian gazebo or the mosaics of vines and scr ip tthat twine endlessly over every surface of a Persian mosque. Indeed,it is right at the skin s surface that people most consciously noticecooling. This makes perfect sense when we consider that both theprocesses of evaporation and convection take place at the surface ofth e skin . E ven when losing body hea t by radiation to a cold surface,people still assume that they are being chil led by a cold draft somewhere in the room . People also feel chilled, to the point of gettinggoosebumps, if their skin is lightly touched, as with t he brush of afeather, even though there is no temperature change at all.

In contrast, there is something basically internal about warmth,probably because we associate it with the warmth generated withinour own bodies. Warmth is whats alive at the very core of things. Afire and the sun also generate heat inside of themselves. We feel theirheat no t so much warming our skin as penetrating into the verycenter of our being.

Other than a fire or the sun, we are generally the warmestthings in our environment, our own source of heat . Thus, when it iscold out, the best way to get warm is to insulate our bodies: to be surrounded by thick, fluffy clothing; to sink into a deep, overstuffedchair; to huddle inside of a small, close-sheltering building. These areall just big enough to enclose our bodies, preventing heat from dispersing very far. Bodies of other people, and animals, can also besources of heat. To be close to someone is to share in their warmth,

both physically and emotionally. Places that remind us of the presence of people, of the life and activi ties that they generate, capturesome of this sense of warmth. The Victorian parlor, with all of itsclutter, its remnants of peoples lives, its deep upholstered chairs andlayers of rugs and curtains and hangings and pictures, has this senseof warmth. The sounds and smells of people all indicate their presenceand, thus , their warmth. Things that were once alive and warmthemselves, like the fur of a polar bear nig. or the leather of a chair,perhaps even the sheeps wool in a sweater, may carry an associationwith that previous life and so seem even wanner.

When we get cold, our muscles tense up, trying to generatemore heat, and capillaries at the skins surface constrict. These physiological responses leave us feeling tense and numb. Places that seemwarm offer an antidote to the tension and numbness with things thatare comforting and soothing: a soft, flowing light; the deep plush of avelvet chair; or the low, resonant notes of a blues song. They help torelax us in the same way that the warmth of a fire, or even a drink ofliquor, penetrates through the body and relaxes the muscles.

When we are overheated we often need the opposite antidote.The hea t makes us lethargic and slow-witted. Any act ion requi res toomuch effort. There is delight, then, to be had in things that provide alittle l iveliness for us, like the splashing of a fountain or the sparkleand flutter of Japanese street decorations. Their activity helps themind feel a bi t more quick-witted and lively in spite of the dullness ofa hot, muggy day. A hot day, however, can also be stressful because itoverstimulates. The sun can be too bright, glinting off of every surface, accompanied by an inescapable dry wind that exhausts thenerves. The antidote then is no t something that moves and sparklesbut a deep, quiet coolness, a place to ret reat from the sun and rest inpeace. Deeply shaded Islamic prayer halls, with their seemingly endless repetition of columns and arches, produce this calming effect. Theclassical Persian garden is intended to provide the antidote to both the

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lethargy and the exhaustion of the senses. There is the liveliness ofthe fountains and the overhanging vines with their fluttering leavesthat create a dappled light. And there are also areas of still water andlarge stone pavilions that create a deep, quiet shade. One is free tomove among these different e lements and to choose the place wherethe balance of liveliness and quietude are just right. The Persian garden offers an amazing richness and variety of sensory experienceswhich all serve to reinforce the pervasive sense of coolness.

Each sense no t only gives us different information about theworld but also has its own quality, its own evocations. Yi-Fu Tuan hasmade some interesting correlations between the senses and ones perception of the world. The sense of smell seems to be somehow linkedwith our faculties of memory. Tuan writes that Odor has the powerto evo ke vivid, emotionally-charged memories of past events andscenes. A whiff of sage may call to mind an entire complex of sensat ions: the image of great rolling plains covered with grass and speckedwith clumps of sagebrush, the brightness of the sun, the heat, thebumpiness of the road.6 Or the same smell of sage, often used in turkey stuffing, might call forth all of the warmth and intimacy ofThanksgiving. Sight is perhaps more difficult to categorize because itfunctions on so many complex levels. But clearly, it is most importantto our spatial understanding of the world. It allows us to see three dimensionally, to judge distance, and th us to understand the relationship of one thing to another. In English, I see means I understand. But vision is a lso rather static. Although we see motion,we tend to remember visually only a fixed image. Hearing, on theother hand, seems to be strongly associated with a sense of time. Asong or a melody to be remembered must be remembered in time.Tuan writes, With deafness, life seems frozen and time lacks progression.7 The sense of touch has an immediacy to it. If we can touchsomething, we are persuaded that it is no t an illusion or a hallucina

tion but that it is very realright here and nowlike pinching yourself to see if you are dreaming. The thermal sense cannot be easilyisolated from overall experience, unlike seeing or hearing. We cannotclose it off, like closing our eyes. Nor does it provide highly differentiated information, as does the individuality of a persons voice, oreven smell. The thermal sense is, however, intricately bound upwith the experience of our bodies. We continually sense the heat flowof our bodies, information that creates a general background for allother experience.

Since each sense contributes a slightly different perception ofthe world, the more senses involved in a particular experience, thefuller, the rounder, the experience becomes. If sight allows for athree-dimensional world, then each other sense contributes at leastone, if not more, additional dimensions. The most vivid, most powerful experiences are those involving all of the senses at once.

Perhaps the human fascination with fire stems from the totalityof its sensory stimulation. The fire gives a flickering and glowing light,ever moving, ever changing. It crackles and hisses and fills the roomwith the smells of smoke and wood and perhaps even food. It penetrates us with its warmth. Every sense is stimulated and all of their associated modes of perception, such as memory and an awareness oftime, are also brought into play, focused on the one experience of thefire. Together they create such an intense feel ing of reality, of thehere and nowness of the moment, that the fire becomes completelycaptivating. We are likely to feel that we could spend hours mesmerized by it. Indeed, Gaston Bachelard makes an eloquent case thatReverie before a burning fire is ... the first and the most trulyhuman use of fire.8Islamic gardens also offer delights for each sense; they seem to

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nave a power similar to that of fire to capt ivate the imagination. ATurkish garden motto states clearly the provisions fo r the senses:

Roses for perfume,Nightingales for song,And the sight and soundof running water.

A sixteenth-century traveler furnished an eyewitness description ofthe delights of a Persian garden during its golden age:

The garden I shall describe was constructed in such away that two courses of crystal-clear water met beforea building, forming a large lake in which countlessswans, geese and ducks disported themselves. Belowthis lake were seven waterfallsas many as there areplanets. . . . From the lake jets of water spouted up sohigh into the air that the spray, as it descended, waslike a rain of diamonds. How often was I moved bythe rippling of the fountains and the murmuring of thebrook as it streamed downhill, over the terraces of thegarden, hemm ed in by rose bushes, willows, andacacias. I cried with sheer joy until the exceedingbeauty and the rushing of the water rocked me tosleep.~

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heschong's thermal delight.pdf

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