RESEARCH ARTICLE

Thermal comfort in twentieth-century architectural heritage: Two houses of Le Corbusier and André Wogenscky

  • Ignacio Requena-Ruiz
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  • AAU-CRENAU, UMR CNRS 1563, Graduate School of Architecture of Nantes, Nantes 44262, France

Received date: 28 Sep 2015

Accepted date: 12 Feb 2016

Published date: 20 Jun 2016

Copyright

2016 2016 The Author. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Abstract

The study of the relationship of climate and indoor thermal environments in architecture is essential to understand the inhabitants' sensory perception. This is even more relevant when working in the existing housing stock in view of the new challenges posed by the conservation of the 20th century architectural heritage and the adaption of these buildings to our current comfort and environmental criteria.

This article aims to develop a balanced understanding of the approach of Modernist architecture to climate, indoor atmospheres and inhabitants' thermal comfort. To do so, we complement the quantitative approach of environmental assessment methods with the qualitative angle of the history of sensory and architecture. The goal is to understand the environmental performance of architecture for dealing nowadays with thermal comfort issues while respecting its cultural and historical values. Two modernist houses have been selected as case studies: the Villa Curutchet of the master Le Corbusier and the Villa Chupin of his disciple André Wogenscky. As a result, the article reveals potentialities and constraints in terms of thermal comfort when working with Modern Architecture.

Cite this article

Ignacio Requena-Ruiz . Thermal comfort in twentieth-century architectural heritage: Two houses of Le Corbusier and André Wogenscky[J]. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2016 , 5(2) : 157 -170 . DOI: 10.1016/j.foar.2016.02.001

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