Effects, measures and solutions for resilient housing to extreme heat

Research Project, 2024 – 2026

Increased and longer heat waves, together with higher average temperatures, have considerable effects on buildings and occupants’ comfort and health, particularly in housing, where there is so far no mechanical cooling.
The possible increase of cooling systems would drastically raise the demand for electricity, with a serious impact on the reliability of the grid, especially during peak hours, and increased CO2 emissions. This project aims to quantify the occurrence of overheating in apartments and identify the factors associated with it by examining the interplay among thermal climate, building and apartment characteristics and occupant behaviour. Short- and long-term measures and strategies will be formulated with the goal of increasing indoor thermal resilience, aiming at both changed behaviour, and technical adaptation of buildings and individual apartments to avoid energy-intensive solutions. The project is interdisciplinary with expertise from architecture, engineering and sociology, and in close collaboration with property owners/managers and developers, and tenant representatives. Capitalizing on a large set of existing thermal climate data, a building-stock model and new data from case studies, including occupant behaviour and thermal perception, the project will in a short time contribute to new knowledge and support the development of short- and long-term guidelines to combat extreme heat in existing, and in the planning and design of new residential buildings.