WSA Public Lecture Series 2025 - 26 - Professor Sue Roaf

Timings:

Doors Open at 5.15pm

Welcome by Professor Jo Patterson at 5.30pm

Lecture by Prof Sue Roaf at 5.40pm

Q&A at 6.30pm

Event Closes at 7.00pm

Lecture Title: Comfort Colonialism: How Air-Conditioning took over the world

Lecture Abstract:

Mechanisms used by the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning industry dominate building design in countries across the world, hi-jacking concepts of comfort to promote the need for mechanical conditioning.

The presentation will outline how comfort actually works for ordinary people in ordinary buildings and will describe how the next generation of buildings will have to be designed to both radically to reduce emissions and also help people survive in a heating world of ever more extreme climates and weather events.

The lecture builds on the new book by Fergus Nicol and Susan Roaf on Adaptive Thermal Comfort to be published in March 2026.

BIO:

Sue Roaf (B.A. Hons, A.A. Dipl., PhD, FRIAS, HonDEng) is Emeritus Professor of Architectural Engineering at Heriot Watt University, Honorary Professor at Deakin University, Melbourne and at the University of Queensland and has an Honorary Doctorate in Engineering at Southampton Solent University.

An award winning author, architect, teacher and solar energy pioneer. Sue spent ten years in Iran and Iraq, on archaeological excavations, nomadic migrations, and researching desert technologies. Her 24 books include those on The Ice-houses of Britain, Ecohouse design, energy efficient buildings, adapting buildings and cities for climate change, sustainability indicators, adaptive and resilient thermal comfort, natural energy buildings and transforming markets in the built environment.

An ex-Oxford City Councillor, ex-member of the UK’s Architects Registration Board and ex-Director of AES Solar Energy Ltd. She is Director of Ecohouse Initiative Ltd., an advisor to the Resilient Design institute in New York (https://www.resilientdesign.org) and has chaired and (co-) organised many conferences including www.plea2017.net, www.icarb.org , www.cate2024.org, www.comfortattheextremes.com. She led Scottish Government programme on Adaptation in the Built Environment from 2010 to 2016, and now leads the Comfort at the Extremes movement, working in Antarctica from 2019 to 2024 and now with researchers in marginalised communities in Australia on climate-safe design.

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Host or Publisher Welsh School of Architecture