ABSTRACT
The provision of comfort remains one of the primary objectives of the design and creation of the built environment. Comfort is a state of mind that is informed by the environmental conditions, the level of control that occupants have over them as well as some psychological factors. The complexity of the issue does not excuse designers to overlook it. In the pursuit of sustainable developments, the Vitruvian principles of fi rmness, commodity and delight would still be the criteria against which the design is to be judged. Research into thermal comfort falls into two categories. The conventional heat-balance approach puts more emphasis on the environmental conditions surrounding the body. The relatively recent adaptive comfort approach has been gaining in popularity. It gives more weight to people’s actions to adapt and change their environments. The following section will discuss the two approaches to thermal comfort.
