Research Design Connection Indoor Climates, Long Ago Homes

Just, Nichols and Dunn evaluated indoor climates across the United States. They studied “indoor climate data from homes…across the USA. We then compared these data to recent global terrestrial climate data (0.5° grid cells, n = 67 420) using a climate dissimilarity index…On average, our study homes were most similar in climate to the outdoor conditions of west central Kenya…Overall, we identified the geographical distribution of the global outdoor climate that is most similar to the interiors of our study homes and summarized study home indoor climate preferences…the temperature people prefer overlaps with much of the geographical area in which key events in hominid evolution and, for that matter, early civilization occurred…We hypothesize that natural selection favoured human preferences and thermal traits that allowed human ancestors to live in those climates.” Insights drawn from this work by Just and colleagues can inform future design decisions that influence the “climates” experienced by space users.

Michael Just, Lauren Nichols, and Robert Dunn. 2019. “Human Indoor Climate Preferences Approximate Specific Geographies.” Royal Society Open Science, https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.180695

Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.