The City as Indoors. Architecture and Urban Climates

The prolongation of this research project combines the theoretical and empirical insights of the first four years into a coherent overall approach to “architecture and urban climates.” The notion of the city as indoors allows for rethinking climate control – a key concern of the discipline of architecture – through the lens of city climate phenomena. Exceeding the scale of the individual building, new architectural strategies that consider the seasons, the outdoor spaces and several buildings taken together will be scrutinized. The imperative of integrating indoors and outdoors in order to reduce environmental and thermal loads in cities is the primary challenge identified by this research project. It comprises two subprojects: Subproject A reconstructs the intellectual history to conceive of entire cities – and not just buildings – as thermal indoors. Prof. Sascha Roesler investigates the history of adapting various urban climatology insights through 20th century architecture, particularly those models aimed at controlling the climate of urban microclimates and the associated buildings by passive means. Complementarily, subproject B reflects the different scales of an urbanized thermal regulation. In this subproject, conducted by anthropologist Dr. Madlen Kobi and architectural theorist Dr. Lorenzo Stieger, thermal governance will be considered part of a broader understanding of thermal regulations in urban contexts. The subproject will draw on comparative data from the four case studies of the first phase: Chongqing (China), Cairo (Egypt), Santiago de Chile, and Geneva (Switzerland).