Abstract
Who is the air-conditioned workplace designed for? This paper, based on an ethnographic project, asks in the vein of Sarah Ahmed, who designs spaces. Centred within the air-conditioned workplace, the project is framed by an understanding of air-conditioning as playing a role in the power and control of people’s bodies and time within the workplace. Specifically, air-conditioning has enabled year-round production and profit, and is useful in justifying adhering to dress-codes that are not intuitive to the outdoor climate, for example, suit jackets and ties in the middle of summer. It is a control that, at the macro level, is powered by an exploitation of the environment for energy resources. The project begins by asking what people wear to the air-conditioned workplace, and why. It is shaped with an experimental methodology in the form of a sensory design ethnography. The approach follows the theory of the researcher immersing themselves in the participant’s world and learning with participants. In this case, the aim is to learn about how air-conditioning in the workplace becomes a part of people’s everyday practices, and what we can learn from this. This ethnographic research has revealed the level of innovative practices and adaptability participants adopt to manage controlled thermal conditions in workplaces. For example, how people actually feel about physical and psychological thermal comfort in the air-conditioned workplace. These participant responses are significant starting points for recognising the possibilities of thermal-comfort futures at work that avoid depending on energy heavy, artificial climate-control.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Human Impacts and Responsibility
KEYWORDS
AIR-CONDITIONING, RESOURCE EXPLOITATION, DRESSING, WORK-PLACE, SENSORY DESIGN ETHNOGRAPHY, ENERGY FUTURES
