Thermodynamic Interactions

Book excerpt: An Exploration into Material, Physiological and Territorial Atmospheres. Energy and sustainability is a complex topic that needs to address simultaneously core disciplinary values and ideas that come from other fields of knowledge. The interconnection between the environment and its climate, its built structures and the human body requires overlying architecture with other disciplines such as meteorology, thermodynamics or physiology to engage them in a holistic way. The book is structured in three blocks—Territorial Atmospheres, Material Atmospheres and Physiological Atmospheres—which present three distinct and successive realms at which thermodynamic exchanges are taking place. Territorial Atmospheres deals with the thermodynamic interaction between the environment and its built structures. Material Atmospheres focuses on the interaction between a building and the climate it generates. And lastly, Physiological Atmospheres centers on the interaction between indoor ambient and the physiologi-cal and psychological effects on human beings. Each of the blocks has a coeditor: Silvia Benedito for Territorial Atmospheres; Iñaki Ábalos for Material Atmospheres and Philippe Rahm for Physiological Atmospheres, who will work together with the editor defining the context of the book.