Blog

Articles

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  The Climatic Potential

  AOC, april 2023, 5 p.

  
  In 1996, French climatologists Denis Lamarre and Pierre Pagney proposed the notion of "climatic potential" to define the way in which a society, at a given moment, represents the constraints and resources of a climate. This notion encompasses what is possible and impossible to do in a given climate at a given time. This article shows that this notion of "climatic potential", somewhat forgotten today, has many practical implications by taking the case of urban cooling and the fight against the UHI phenomenon. The analysis of the climate potential at the regional and local scale is presented as a way to overcome the difficulties posed by the current climate change in the fields of architecture and urban planning.
  
  

  Climate, Architecture, Urbanism, Microclimate, Modeling

  
  

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  Earth Construction and the Meaning of Thermal Inertia

  B. Bensaude-Vincent (dir.), Materials and Time: An Anthology, 2022, 6 p.

  
  This article discusses the notion of thermal inertia in architecture through the history of thermal science. It shows that thermal inertia is an intuitive and essential property to ensure the thermal comfort of buildings, although it is sometimes largely ignored. In our opinion, designing according to thermal inertia implies having a temporal approach to the phenomena of heat propagation and not being satisfied with the sole research of thermal insulation.
  
  

  Philosophy of Technology, Technology, Thermal Sciences, Architecture