I'm kind of amazed that natural temperature management such as geothermal cooling isn't more of a thing. If you were to design a house with the sleeping spaces below ground, wouldn't you save a lot on cooling and heating costs?
Right, but his house is built into the cliff specifically to help with thermo/electricity costs. At least according to what I read. Interestingly enough his house is worth something like $150MM and his neighbors are $8M. If you Google map him (boring weekend) the person directly across from him has a fairly normal house with very normal cars (old 4runners, etc.).
Evidently he bought that land in 1988.
The most interesting part of google mapping it was his curious gate. He's got a really weirdly designed entry gate. Couldn't find any info on it, though. My friends usually have their initials or their "crest" as gates.
i went by it in 01 on a boat. there was. an incognito security guard on a wind surf rig out front. he was just sitting on the board with the sail in the water. amusing.
I live in the desert as well. I'd love to have a house with better insulation to spend less on AC. Earth sheltered homes seems like a great way to do that (though there are other problems - e.g. moisture, heavier roof).
Look at what London has done to their subways. Geothermal cooling only works so much and eventually your geo becomes a thermal battery saturated with heat and won't take any more.
Exactly, even if you have closed loop geothermal heat pumps (which more efficiently exchanges heat from the thermal mass of the ground and the refrigerant pumped through a heat exchanger) you are still limited in the amount of heat the refrigerant can exhaust into the ground before you've heated up the ground where it's not possible. And vice-versa in winter where you can freeze t he ground solid by doing the opposite. Still a good idea, but has scale issues especially for high-density areas.
Have you heard of the town Cooper Pedy in South Australia?
A standard three-bedroom cave home with lounge, kitchen, and bathroom can be excavated out of the rock in the hillside for a similar price to building a house on the surface. However, dugouts remain at a constant temperature, while surface buildings need air conditioning, especially during the summer months, when temperatures often exceed 40 °C (104 °F).
There are several motels offering underground accommodation, ranging from a few rooms to the entire motel being a dug-out.
Depends on many factors including soil type, water table height, drainage, etc.
In many instances it would cost you many many times more to build underground than any savings in heating and cooling do to the problems with underground building poses
In my area basements have continual problems with moisture penetration because we have high annual rain fall, soil that holds water, and high water tables making building under ground very very expensive and over 30+ years a continual maintenance problem for the owner
So, you have to leave before 4:30, which means you have to get in dam early, dam dam early if your rushing a project and need a slightly longer day.
Do we get the cognitive dissonance of how this flies against the 'other' hacker dogma about some people are late starters? How uneven sleep cycles are unhealthy?
Do we get how air pollution kills millions each year?
Do we get how we KNOW open plan offices suck but they are everywhere because floor space size is a huge cost driver.
These buildings are cool art projects, cool experimental design projects, awesome to have in the world, but they just don't work as a solution.
AC is here to stay. It's healthy, it's $ efficient and I'd like to see given the freedoms and efficiencies it gives if it truly does costs us more energy than the alternatives. AC allows us to live tightly in cities, true environmentalism.
> You forget how hardwired humans are to really enjoy the natural environment," she said. People get respite from being connected to nature, she said, "even in an urban environment like a city"
Um, no I don't think I'll enjoy working @ 78F much.
Why? 25°C is absolutely fine for working inside, at least for me. A little cooler and I need a sweater and long pants. This summer I've mainly worked at home (no AC, Southern Ontario), because I don't want to bring my winter clothes to work. Combine a room cooled to 20°C, the AC breeze, and me sitting at a desk without a scarf and I have a sore throat in under two hours.
It's a fine temperature for remaining completely sedentary, but I like to be able to walk to the bus or cafe, or up and down stairs, without breaking a sweat.
To be fair, the average daily high in Seattle during the summer is 75F. You would only have to deal with temperatures like that for 2-3 weeks per year. Seattle is currently having a heat wave, which is the reason for the temperature in the article.
There’s a reason offices are air conditioned the way they are, trust me. While some of you lucky people can tolerate these temperatures comfortably, a significant percentage of the population sweats profusely in anything beyond 70 degrees Fahrenheit (I’m one of them).
Those of us who suffer from this would LOVE to trade places with the people who complain of the terrible effort of “putting on a sweater in the summer time” when it’s a bit too cool inside.
Unfortunately, we do not have the luxury of peeling off our skin when we are sweating uncontrollably in a 78F room, that some say is “not too hot”.
It’s important to recognize that humans are very diverse creatures, and office environments have to deal with the complex task of accommodating a wide range of physiologies.
Do you think people were terribly uncomfortable at ambient temperatures due to their physiology before AC was invented?
In natural conditions, I'd expect people who sweat more to actually be more comfortable with natural airflow causing evaporative cooling. Unfortunately, in modern well sealed buildings with little air flow, this adaptation would be counterproductive.
It sounds like this building was an experiment aimed at rediscovering what a natural air flow would feel like in an office environment. I love my AC, personally, but I'd still be curious to see what 78 feels like in that building, it might not be so bad. I do enjoy working outside on the patio when it's warm out with a nice cool breeze.
> Do you think people were terribly uncomfortable at ambient temperatures due to their physiology before AC was invented?
Absolutely, unquestionably, YES! (Certainly for some people). Those sufficiently uncomfortable would migrate to climates better suited to their physiology, if their physiology didn’t adapt to the environment; for example, my ancestors were from extreme cold environments, and I am without a doubt FAR more comfortable in 50 degree F weather in a T shirt than I am in 70 degree weather. And to me with the right clothing, everything down to and even below freezing is quite pleasant.
Prior to much modern technology, just surviving and staying alive as a human was a miserable, painful experience.
We have it so, so good today, compared to our ancestors just a hundred years ago, let alone thousands. Virtually every measure of human suffering (extreme poverty, starvation, sickness, death, etc) is dramatically lowering with each generation.
It is a wonderful thing that modern advancements allows us to be comfortable, which then further frees our minds to pursue even greater and more wonderful endeavors.
> Do you think people were terribly uncomfortable at ambient temperatures due to their physiology before AC was invented?
Isn't that like asking "Do you think people were terribly uncomfortable using the outhouse in the middle of winter before indoor plumbing was invented?"
Uh, yeah. Life before AC, indoor plumbing, electricity, refrigeration, etc. sucked hard.
I lived in a cabin in Fairbanks, Alaska with no indoor plumbing and an outhouse. My wife is from Siberia and her house didn't have plumbing until the 90's. Going to the outhouse at 50 below in the middle of the night wasn't terribly uncomfortable, because I put on a jacket and gloves. A bit inconvenient, but not terrible.
Neither me or my wife feel like that lifestyle "sucked hard", although it certainly had challenges. Now we have a nice house in an affluent suburb and have plenty of luxuries, yet this lifestyle also has its challenges. Whether or not it sucks seems largely a matter of mindset and perspective.
A car not starting in slightly below freezing weather is a challenge. You’ll be hard pressed to find someone in the developed world who doesn’t think going to an outhouse at 50 below isn’t “sucking hard”.
Without speaking for others, there isn’t any scenario I’d consider where running water and flush toilets aren’t available and within where I reside.
Having my car not start in Fairbanks was much, much more challenging than the outhouse. It took a lot of vigilance to make sure the battery stayed warm enough to hold a charge. I had to install heaters on my battery, engine, and transmission and remember to plug them in every single time I stopped the engine. If there was not a place to plug in, we left the car idling. If the car died, we were risking injury or even death from frostbite or hypothermia. That was a very serious challenge to have to deal with on a daily basis.
The outhouse, on the other hand, was almost zero maintenance. The only cleaning I had to do was occasional sweeping. It was nicely made from cedar wood with plenty of natural ventilation (no door), it never smelt terrible or felt disgusting. It takes a lot of work and money to make an indoor bathroom stay as nice as my outhouse was naturally.
I agree that you will find very many people in the developed world who think that going to an outhouse at 50 below would probably suck hard, but relatively few of them have first-hand experience so that's a hypothetical situation for them.
In Alaska you can certainly find plenty of people who voluntarily live this way. Not out of poverty or being a total recluse, but because the negative parts simply don't turn out to be as bad as it might seem before you've tried it, and the positive experiences associated with living closer to nature are deeply rewarding.
Do I care if "people were terribly uncomfortable at ambient temperatures due to their physiology before AC was invented?"... No, No I do not.
We have AC now, lets use it
I do not have the desire to Sweat all day every day in my office while I am attempting to use a computer or do my work
I do not have the desire to have my body be cooled by "natural airflow causing evaporative cooling" caused by my profuse uncomfortable and unsightly sweating over everything
I do not have the this desire, what I have a desire for is Air Conditioning, a modern convenience that human invented so we would no longer need to use "natural airflow causing evaporative cooling"
So do you just stay inside all day because of AC? I blast the AC all day long at the office, in the car, and at home, but on the weekend I feel like getting out! I like going for a hike, or on a bike ride, or going swimming. Yeah, I sweat, then a breeze hits and it feels awesome. This evaporative cooling business isn't total bullshit.
For me anything above 21 C (~70 F) and sunny is uncomfortable miserable for me. I am serious. Everybody seems to enjoy the sunlight and talk about how depressed they get in the winters when it’s dark but I have the exact 100% opposite. During the summers I can’t go outside. Like, it’s not physically impossible and I can tolerate going outside long enough to walk to the store and so on, but the thought of “enjoying my time outside in the warm summer sun” elucidates the same thoughts that you’d get if I asked you to stick your hand inside a garbage disposal. I’m not even being hyperbolic right now. The thought of being outside when it’s sunny and 21+ degrees seriously shuts me down entirely. I’m basically depressed all summer and spring because of the sun, because of the temperature. I’m depressed because it means I cant go outside and enjoy the things I enjoy in the fall and winter: going on long bike rides, trail running, hiking and camping, etc.
For whatever reason, the moment the bright sun shines in my face or the first bead of sweat beads up on my body I just 100% shut down. Nothing is fun anymore. Nothing is enjoyable anymore.
I’ve spoken with several therapists to try to get some help with this and nothing people say or tell me has helped. It doesn’t help that everybody things I’m just being a big baby either.
But come fall and winter, I f-king love live. I love waking up before the sun rises and getting in a nice 30 minute run in the dark. I love getting into work when it’s dark and leaving work when it’s dark. I love walking around town or visiting nearby cities (Europe) in the winter because I’m not sweating the entire time. I love feeling the super cold wind hit me as I’m cycling long 20+ km rides. In the spring and summer I love being outside on the days when it’s overcast, gray, raining aka “depressing weather.” It doesn’t bother me at all. I love looking outside my office windows or my living room window and seeing gray clouds all day every day. In the winters I can wear T-shirt’s down to ~5 C, and I can wear just a hoodie and jeans down to the negatives as long as I have gloves.
I would love it if I could stand being in the sun, being in the warmth, but I can’t and I’ve tried. Like a lot of people have wrote: you can always wear more clothes. You can always light the place up. You can always use an umbrella. What can I do when it’s unbearbly hot and sunny and I’m already wearing shorts and a T-shirt? Absolutely nothing.
I separate all of my trash and recycle everything I’m able to. Food waste is composted. I haven’t used plastic bags in years and I’ve been asking for no straws since before it came into the news now. I don’t own a car. I ride my bike everywhere I’m able to and otherwise I take public transit. I’m a vegetarian for environmental reasons. I don’t own a clothes dryer because the sun works just as well.
As I said I think it’s wasteful especially cause I can’t seal my windows. But if you read my post then you’d see that my limit of caring stops when I’m sweating in my bed at 11pm at night because it’s still 30+ despite me being on the ground floor.
Thank you for your response. Not that I’m an arbiter or these things but I think you are perceptive of your impact and what you can do to minimize it to a much greater degree than most, and we’d all be better off if more of us in the developed world were as thoughtful.
It's certainly true that overweight people tend to run a little warmer. It's just a brute consequence of more insulation. We are not abstract thinking machines, but rather embedded in the physical world. My weight has fluctuated over the years, and when I'm carrying more pounds, I definitely notice that temperatures I used to feel comfortable at now cause me discomfort.
As for the implication. I really didn't imply anything. I have no idea of expounded's weight. Being overweight would be one explanation of his experience, but not the only one. I didn't know, so I asked. It certainly seems to be a touchy subject for him or her.
Sounds like you are a bit on the far end of the spectrum, but I can definitely relate. I tend to feel miserable too when it's getting too bright and warm.
I don't personally mind short warm bursts when I'm sitting in a sauna and getting a frigid soaking afterwards, but I do tend to sweat and it's really very annoying having to wear cloth during an office day that that are soaked - and my skin also hates me for it. I also tend to feel immediately miserable when I get direct sunshine on my head, which is why I tend to wear a hat - though that makes the sweating issue worse.
I kind of enjoy the time of my commute the most where I can set the AC as I please and put on some fairly dark driving sunglasses while listening to a book. Peaceful and comfortable time that is.
I also got a set of office glasses with some 50% shading and a blue light filter for those places that insist on 1500 Lumen/m2 brightness.
I concur about the lack of understanding of a lot of people for these issues. "Sun is good, stop whining" is really irritating. People are different, not every one likes ice cream, bright light/sun, waking up early, etc.
Thanks for taking the time to share your experience, it does help to understand and empathize with the breadth of human experiences.
I don't think the point of the building in this article was to force warmer temperatures on everybody. It sounded more like an experiment in increasing airflow. I think it would be most beneficial if they could work out a way to keep temperatures lower without sacrificing the air flow.
As an engineer, I firmly believe that innovation is driven through the process of starting with an experiment, discovering weak points, and steadily iterating to mitigate the weaknesses without sacrificing the advantages. But this process must be firmly grounded in a deep understanding of experiences of end-users who interact with the product, and the core objective should be improving quality of life, accounting for the variability in what that means to different people.
For the most part yes I stay indoors.. I do not like going for a hike, or a bike ride in the summer months when it is above 80 degrees out... This is one of the reasons gyms have all kinds of Stationary bikes, treadmills, etc so people do not have to be out in the heat while still being able to exercise..
Swimming well I am in cool water at the point does sweating is not really needed.
Further I am not in Business Causal attire when I am hiking, and hiking or other outdoor exercise is an activity where one is expected to be sweating, however in a office environment one is not expected to have sweat dripping from the face, have their shirt soaked in sweat, etc.
The specific Terry Thomas office build that's the topic of discussion is atypical, that's the point of the article. It sounds like they'd accommodate attire appropriate for the temperature... it's Seattle, wearing outdoor clothing to work is totally normal.
And we have a very mild climate, so it would only be this hot in late afternoon for a dozen days or so each year. On such days I'd just say "I'm uncomfortable so I'm going to WFH the rest of the day." I'm pretty sure that would be acceptable for this architecture firm. It's never been a problem that I leave work early due to traffic from baseball games near my downtown Seattle office, for example.
I totally understand that you have a different heat tolerance and physiological reaction to heat than I do. I'd go crazy exercising in a gym when it feels so much more stimulating overall to be outside, whereas mid-80's temperature with low humidity is just mildly unpleasant to me. But I respect that other's feel differently about it.
However, the difference between 78 and your ideal temperature is probably not so great, especially compared to many other parts of the country with much higher temps and humidity. I wouldn't entirely discount the possibility that this Terry Building might not be as uncomfortable for you as it sounds. And if it did turn out to be unbearably uncomfortable for you, I wouldn't discount the possibility of working together with your team and management to find an agreeable solution.
They say shorts etc are fine, but in the picture, I see a guy in a suit and tie. It's an architectural firm; do you want to meet customers with pitstains on your shirt? I'm sure some customers wouldn't mind, but most businesspeople who are looking for a firm expect a certain level of professional attire.
I see a guy with a shirt and tie, but no suit jacket. A few other people have long sleeve shirts. I couldn't speak for them as to whether they are uncomfortable and sweaty, but based on personal experience hiking with long sleeves to avoid sunburn, high quality shirts can be very breathable and comfortable at temperatures around 78-80.
I admit the possibility that this whole article is a puff piece meant as PR for this firm, and in reality they're all miserable inside but maintain a charade of happiness to hide from potential customers the fact that their heat chimney was in fact an engineering disaster.
The simpler explanation, which jibes with my personal experience as a longtime Seattleite, is that it's just not that big of a deal to do without AC here as long as its a relatively small building and you get the airflow right.
I dont think I ever stated my "ideal" temp, I stated what is tolerable to me as I am aware that I work in a building with others so compromise is a must
When I have my own office with my own AC Zone/Controls it would be set to 62 Degrees. That is a significant difference from 78.
My current office building has shared zones and sets the AC at about 73, it is bearable most days provided I do not need to do anything more than use my computer, even then I have a desk fan blowing air at me continually while at my desk. I am not however sweating or overly uncomfortable, the fan is able to mitigate 90% of my comfort.
However it does not take much physical work in that environment to push me over the edge in to sweating.
as to "accommodate attire appropriate for the temperature" the thing is some people might like wearing shorts, sandals, and a beach shirt to work, I do not even own these things. I don't wear suits, but I wear long pants, I wear a button down shirt and that is it. I do not believe an office environment should look like everyone is going to the beach. I am sure that is old fashioned thinking however, i believe Professionals should dress professionally.
I've worked in a number of professional environments, and attire ranged from steel-toed work boots and rugged clothes covered with mud, to full suit-and-tie, and a range of in-betweens (but never beach gear). So I never associated attire with professionalism per se, although it is important to wear something suitable to the task at hand.
What has not been so variable are things I'd consider more core aspects of professional behavior:
* caring deeply about customer needs and expectations, exercising grit, determination, and ingenuity to satisfy them
* understanding business concerns like cost management and delivering value to both investors and customers, striking a balance between competing demands
* understanding and caring about teammates, working effectively with a team to achieve above 2 objectives. maintaining a solution oriented mindset.
Here's how I might apply my interpretation of professionalism to the hypothetical situation that you were a capable coworker at Weber Thompson who felt uncomfortable due to the approximately 16 degree temperature excess on a hot day: propose partitioning off a space and installing air conditioning there for those who want it.
I don't see any inherent technical obstacles or insurmountable business concerns in that solution. It would balance the desires of some employees for connection with outside air, without causing discomfort to others who for one reason or another have a different preference. Customers might appreciate the flexibility to make the space suitable for a wider variety of preferences, and ask if we can do the same for them.
Yes, of course. If you want to experience that, just go and work in China where many offices in the north lack AC and many in the south lack heat. Your productivity will simply plummet in either case (you can’t code very well with freezing fingers or sweaty arms). I think in the ost they just took the oroductivit hit in stride (well, white collar work wasn’t as common).
> Do you think people were terribly uncomfortable at ambient temperatures due to their physiology before AC was invented?
Yes, absolutely. I grew up without AC and now I jokingly tell my fiance my entire career has been motivated to ensure I maintain access to AC the rest of my life.
I grew up in a very cold place (MN) compared to most - the cold didn't matter much to me. I'm a t-shirt in 40 degree weather sort of guy. The hot summer months were absolute utter hell though, even with fans and sleeping in the basement/etc. To this day I think this had a huge effect on my sleeping patterns and thus other health problems later on in life.
I do think one of the elephants in the room is the obesity issue. I certainly have noticed I get a lot hotter with 40lbs extra on me. When the average American is overweight I'm sure this has moved the "herd preference temperature" down a couple degrees the past few decades.
American offices are always too cold for me, and I live in Norway. I often have to take a light pullover with me to the US even in the summer just to wear in the office when it is 40 C in the shade outside.
In Norway electricity is cheap and I have found that people heat their houses to higher temperatures than in neighboring countries during long cold time. But then lower office temperature is uncomfortable.
Sorry, what? What are we supposed to do here? Use euphemisms like "big", or maybe technical terms like "overweight" or "obese"? Do we deny that fat people have a different experience to regular people? Do we deny the existence of fat people altogether?
I really don't understand what your problem is with this.
This is something that varies wildly with which part of the world you're in. For me, anything below 65F is "too cold" with 85 being a comfortable temperature.
I’m usually a cold lover, but this summer I’ve had to suck it up. I’ve been working in London, UK in an office where it’s usually above 25c (no proper AC and south facing windows) and my apartment is often the same temperature when I go to sleep (one night it was 29c/84F).
A few observations I’ve made:
- Even when it’s this temperature, a fan blowing air over you really helps to increase comfort. Too much airflow is also uncomfortable (messes with the NC on my headphones), and most desk fans are too powerful even on their lowest settings.
- I’ve started eating less which seems to reduce my metabolism causing the heat to effect me less. It’s a trade-off as if I eat too little I can’t work as effectively, but there’s a local optimum vs being too uncomfortable from the heat.
- Shorts and t-shirt everyday. Even then I’m still sweating for the next hour if I do anything strenuous outside.
- People who are always cold don’t seem to understand the discomfort people experience from heat. In my home country in the depths of winter it often gets to 15c/60F or less in old buildings. I’d much rather that with lots of layers and hot drinks, than be too hot. Maybe they feel the same about the heat though, can anyone comfortably work in an office environment that is 35c/95F?
35C is way too much, but my optimal working temperature is 22-25C. I find anything below 20C too cold to work in, even with extra layers of clothes. I am incessantly surprised by people putting AC down to 16C or 14C.
This may have to do with the climate you grew up in. For example, I absolutely love outside temperatures between 28-35C, provided a dry climate and access to water (sea/river/lake).
I would love this. I have to dress for two different climates on summer workdays - skirt/shorts and short sleeves for outside, jeans and sweater (plus a sweatshirt over it) for inside. It's absurd how overly air-conditioned office environments are.
It's because offices are stuck air conditioning to a level that makes suits comfortable. There was a big brouhaha about it in England a couple years ago.
If anywhere in the world has figured out how to dress for heat and humidity, it's the Indian subcontinent, and all I'm saying is the sari involves bare midriff for a reason. I live in the southeast and spend a lot of time outside. To cut down on my sunscreen bill, I've started wearing loose, long sleeve white cotton button ups with the last few buttons undone so I can tie the ends up around my waist.
You catch a breeze wearing that, and it's like wearing a weightless AC unit on your back. Hand to God.
On the flip side, there is only so much clothes I can take off before it becomes illegal where as it is easy for people to put on more clothes if they are cold. Granted, there are ways I can help cool myself down such as having a fan which I do have at my desk but it would be ridiculous to bring that with me to meetings and stuff.
To flip back around to your point though, I definitely understand it as my girlfriend has raynaud's so I'll be in my apartment with the fan on still hot while my girlfriend will be next to me freezing with her hands turning white because she is cold. We are hoping our future kids will even out our weird temperature imbalances and be normal.
To add on, I also have to do the 2 dress types but for the winter because I get extremely uncomfortable in jeans in the office and so I'll wear those to work once it gets unbearable to wear shorts, and then I just switch to shorts once I get to the office.
So, pick your poison and while it may be just that the grass is always greener on the other side, I would definitely prefer to run on the colder side than the hotter side especially since I prefer to wear jeans and a sweatshirt/jacket over shorts and a t-shirt.
Edit: My girlfriend said she would rather be like me and be too hot than be too cold so maybe it is just the grass is always greener on the other side.
Not GP, but my desk is under a damn air vent. It is very likely to be 5 degrees (or more) warmer down the aisle from me. I don't have raynaud's, I just hate being blasted with cold air when it's literally not cold outside (which is a serious plus where I am located)
Have you considered switching your desk with someone who likes it colder? I, for one, would jump at the opportunity. Maybe some of your co-workers would too..
Meanwhile you have people like me. I'm are already uncomfortably hot no matter how I'm dressed (or not) at 78. Even in shorts and a tshirt, most offices are warmer than I'd prefer.
This may be my own biases at play here, but it's really not that hard to warm up by dressing warmer. You don't have that option for cooling down unless you want to wear a vest full of icepacks or something. If the goal is to maximize comfort, it seems like the thermostat should be set lower rather than higher.
Or we can simply ignore the vocal minority that demands temperatures below 78F/25C, and thus maximize subjective comfort. They are fucked anyway, they need to visit the outside world to get to work.
I don't think 78 is a temperature that only a vocal minority is uncomfortable at? It's not hard for people to start sweating at that temperature with even mild effort and most people don't like having sweat stains or sweaty armpits at work
Most cars have air conditioning (a lot of trains do too), and most people commute well before and after the hottest part of the day. If your office is a sauna for three months and you won't fix it, everyone who isn't unemployable will probably quit.
funny, here in Germany many offices and most homes don't have AC. Granted it's usually not that hot during the summer, but right now it has been around 85 since April and a lot of people are suffering at work, but nobody would quit because of that.
if no other companies they could go work at have ac either... what would be the point of quitting? people generally don't quit out of protest to just... do nothing, but they'd quit to go work someplace else.
I'm not sure why you wouldn't. You're spending a significant chunk of your time at the office. If you are uncomfortable all of that time it's a significant issue.
I mean if your job only allowed you to sit on a small unpadded stool, wouldn't that motivate you to find a new job?
There are fingerless gloves that can help. Ultimately for warm hands in cold conditions you need to maintain a reasonable core body temperature. Otherwise your extremities will be cold no matter what you do. That is harder to regulate if you are just sitting.
In my office, I have a lot of hardware. With my door shut, it gets to be an oven even with air conditioning, with the door open it’s still hot, even though the hallway temp is 68. I actually like it cold inside. You can always wear more clothes, but there is a limit to how much you can take off. It’s pretty unfair to impose hot temperatures on people since there isn’t much that can be done after you’ve stripped down to the bare essentials of clothing. But colder temperatures — it’s easy to wear a light sweater.
78 in the building along with hot computers means you are quickly going to have a rather uncomfortable situation.
The fact this company has to adjust work hours to accommodate their “progressiveness” means they actually haven’t solved anything. It’s just virtue signaling. They could just as easily have their team work nights to get the same effect — but then they wouldn’t get media attention for just how innovative they are. Windows open in California means you also subject yourself to wildfire particulates, smog and other pollutants that HVAC systems mitigate. “Fresh air” is nice — when it’s actually fresh, and in most cities, it isn’t. Even Paris has had serious air quality situations. City air just isn’t all that clean. In Beijing, “fresh air” is downright toxic. I am not sure how eliminating air conditioning is considered an innovation. Air conditioning was one of the most important inventions, anyone that says otherwise never spent any time in an un-air-conditioned New Orleans house with box fans creating a cross breeze of 100% humidity. The nostalgia for the good old days is felt by those that never had to live through those days.
This story reads to me like nonsense. Seattle, while it can get “hot” is positively frigid when compared to much of the rest of the country. Try that in Atlanta, Houston or Arizona. This story is the equivalent of a Miami building being built without heating — it isn’t any kind of groundbreaking innovation. When a building in Minnesota is built without heat, then I might be interested.
What’s really innovative is how Apple Park handles fresh air and HVAC. Apple Park isn’t 78 degrees inside — it’s much cooler; they went far beyond the “innovation” in this Seattle building. This sort of innovation can be done, but being proud of a 78 degree internal temperature is like being proud when someone’s kid stops wetting the bed at age 12. It’s only a big deal to those who are experiencing it, but to the rest of us, it’s just self-congratulatory bullshit of the most mundane sort: big deal, you designed a building that isn’t quite at hot as the outdoors using groundbreaking technology that is equivalent to an open window.
Get yourself one of those fans that can point straight at the ceiling. Stick it near your door, but out of the way, and you can siphon in a bunch of that cold air from the hallway. Cold air sinks.
All of your comparisons to buildings or temperature or air quality in California, Paris, Beijing, etc are irrelevant, because we aren't talking about a building in those places, or even a building with an environment similar to those places. This story is about a building in Seattle.
I don't know why you seem to be so riled up about this building. Why can't you read an article about a building that is achieving sustainability in an interesting way without being triggered by it? Sure, it has it's characteristics that some people might not prefer, but it's nothing to get so upset over.
What's sustainable about this building? We don't know the TCO through its lifecycle, nor its energy usage. And all those inefficient desktop fans can't help.
Checking in from an un-airconditioned New Orleans house with a window unit or two. Missing the transoms that got taken out in the renovation. Good thing I'm moving out.
Your arms will still sweat to your desk if you don’t have great typing skills regardless of how naked you are. Offices are kept at or below 70F because productivity peaks at that level in ways that clothing can’t help.
i worked in a call center years ago. the thermostat was in the 'executive office' hallway, where 4 people worked. it controlled the temp for the whole side of our building, affecting 130 people. One of the execs 'liked it cold", and would turn it down. The airflow was a problem - to get it to 73-74 for him, the rest of the larger callcenter room would be closer to 68-69. My shared office space with 5-6 others was off that larger space, but was one of the airducts feeding everything else. I came in one morning, and the digital thermostat on my desk clock said it was 62f at my desk. I couldn't type after an hour. I went and brought in a small space heater, and got a slight reprimand (non-company equipment, etc). It was odd - the rest of the guys in my space said "yeah, it's cold" but claimed to be OK - I couldn't move my fingers to type/mouse without some pain after an hour or so of being in 62f.
I probably should have said "he liked it at 73" - that was his thing. If anyone moved it, there was a lot of hell to pay (or so I'd been told). The preferences of one person (who was not even necessarily in that building a full/regular 40 hours per week) outweighed the comfort of 120 other people who worked early morning to late night.
I've been in Seattle for almost 3 years now and the temperature the AC gets set at is like 64F. When I lived elsewhere it was always set @ 72F. It's so cold in my office downtown that I have a fall/winter jacket I'm often wearing on the hottest days and dresses/skirts end up causing me to be uncomfortably cold the entire day.
Yes, 85 is well beyond "constant sweating even when not moving or doing anything" temperatures for me, and I wouldn't want to be in a room of coworkers doing the same either. 78 would be at the edge of idle sweating.
And for some of us (myself, for example) 68 without a breeze is my threshold of constant idle sweating. I have to set up a tower fan under my monitor at work to be comfortable (this is with office AC set to low 70s, which is way too hot for me), and at home I have AC set to 65-68 pretty much all the time.
People who complain about having to put on a sweater have no idea how miserable it is for those of us who have to sit for 8+ hours in an environment sweating profusely when it gets too hot.
This is why office AC is the way it is. You can put on a sweater. I cannot take off my skin.
It is even worse when the office is set to 75 because some people continually complain "its too cold" and you have a dress code of Long Pants, Collared Button down shirt, etc....
And there's some of us who turn into a pile of red and brown goo at anything over 25 F. I'm much more comfortable in the nude with snow packed onto my torso than I am at this furnace of 68 F.
This is a question out of ignorance, I mean it sincerely: Are you overweight, or a thyroid issue, or something? IANADoctor but to be sweaty at idle at 68F seems very unusual.
78 is tolerable with a breeze (and moderate humidity).
I live in the Seattle area without AC and it's fine. Open the windows at night with a window fan to bring in cool air (I don't have a breeze-inducing courtyard), close the windows and the blinds in the daytime to keep out the sun.
Even in 90 degree weather outside, the bedrooms on the third floor stay under 75 degrees and by bedtime it's typically cooler than that so the fan keeps it cool.
I live in the Seattle area without an AC, it’s fine but I can only code at home in the morning and at night, I’m not going to use my computer between 12 and 6PM during a heat wave without a huge ass fan next to me, and even then it doesn’t work out well.
On my A/C unit, 25C is the factory default setting in cooling mode (20C for heating). I don't know why but in the US, people tend to set their A/C to arctic mode.
Am I reading this correctly? 25 degrees Celsius is too hot to work?
Just think about all the people who have to actual work, as in manual labour, outside in the full heat, and you're complaining about sitting at a desk at 25 degrees. You should be ashamed of yourself.
While you might have a point, there's no need to gatekeep
Also while physical labor is definitely hard under the heat, intellectual work can grind to a halt depending on the temperature
To the point where I'm really skeptical of places that don't offer any kind of climate control where it is needed (and apparently that's quickly becoming "everywhere")
Is this a culture clash? In my part of the world my post would have been considered perfectly acceptable and civil. Have you ever watched a British debate? We don't all pretend to like each other and put on a false overly agreeable facade. We're allowed to disagree with people and it's great.
Yea, 78 degrees is considered a comfortable room temperature in many parts of the world. The vast majority of households in Asia, South America, Africa, and AFAIK many parts of Europe do not have A/C at all. It's nowhere near "kill old people" levels.
It's kind of offputting how spoiled and fragile the Americans in this thread seem to be responding to the thought of a room without A/C.
Maybe we are used to be comfortable. Also, consider that not everyones body works that same and is perfectly comfortable at the same temperature. There is a reason crime is correlated with temperature: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/data/ct-crime-heat-analys...
Nearly every human being on Earth (exceptions being people with certain health conditions) is capable of being perfectly comfortable at 78 degrees, they just have to adjust to it. My comment isn't directed at someone who is saying "I'm used to being colder than 78 degrees and that seems a little hot to me". My comment is directed at the people who act like a room being 78 degrees is a war crime and, as originally quoted, "kills old people". That kind of perspective is narrow-minded and dismisses the billions of humans who don't live spoiled lives inside 65 degree buildings every day (I say this as someone who prefers my apartment to be an icy 68 degrees).
Anecdote: I lived in Western Washington my whole life up until a year ago and I used to only be comfortable at temps under 70. We moved to Phoenix and over the year we've been here, we've gotten used to having our AC higher and higher and right now it's at 74 and I still get chilly inside sometimes. I never would have imagined that I could ever be comfortable at this temperature.
Now I'm suspicious that I could grow to be comfortable at temperatures several degrees higher...
Ask a Parisian what they would think about an apartment that didn’t have heat. Those Parisians are sure spoiled and fragile! My wife’s family in Mexico doesn’t have heat in their house. I guess they are less fragile than Parisians.
Your comment is absurd. People in the places you mentioned don’t choose to be without heat or air conditioning because they want to, it’s generally because either the climate is less extreme and more comfortable or because they can’t afford it. Ask a family in Monterrey, Mexico if they’d like to have air conditioning if cost were no object. Very few would decline such an offer.
>Ask a Parisian what they would think about an apartment that didn’t have heat. Those Parisians are sure spoiled and fragile! My wife’s family in Mexico doesn’t have heat in their house. I guess they are less fragile than Parisians.
What an absurd comment to make. Of course Parisians have heaters - it reaches low temperatures there in the winter. It doesn't reach those temperatures in most parts of Mexico.
I've lived through 115 degree summers in Texas. Of course we have air conditioning here, because it's necessary. But we aren't talking about Texas, we're talking about Seattle, where the ambient indoor temperature is 78 degrees. I wouldn't say someone is fragile for not wanting to live in 115 degrees without A/C, but yes, if you think 78 degrees is "way too hot" as some of the comments in this thread say, you are fragile.
>People in the places you mentioned don’t choose to be without heat or air conditioning because they want to, it’s generally because either the climate is less extreme and more comfortable or because they can’t afford it.
No, you have no idea what you're talking about. I've also lived in Singapore where the temperature averages 90ish degrees every day with near 100% humidity. Even among those who can afford it, most choose to forgo A/C because it simply isn't necessary. Even those who do choose to purchase an A/C do not turn it on because most find the addition of A/C to make rooms uncomfortably cold. This also goes for the portions of central and eastern Europe that I've lived in, as well as the portions of S. America I've visited. The human body is perfectly capable of being very comfortable at 75-80 degrees ambient temperature.
Furthermore, your entire second paragraph hinges on the hypothetical "if cost were no object", which is absurd. The entire point of non-A/C buildings (like the one that this entire thread is about) is that they reduce cost (both monetarily and environmentally). The cost is the entire point.
My original comment wasn't referring to to the 'fragility' of being personally unadjusted to other temperatures. It was referring to the 'fragility' of a mindset that apparently cannot entertain the mere idea that it is possible to be adjusted to those temperatures, and are apparently so triggered by such an idea that they make comments such as yours.
It's not really useful to make this type of comment. The sneering at, say, European "so-called heat waves" where temperatures are comparable to an average summer day in many parts of the US fails to take into account that sustained temperatures at those levels, in places unaccustomed to them, can indeed easily be fatal, and do not represent a failure of the residents to adapt. Rather, they occur because the residents have adapted -- to the recent-historical climate of their region!
In Europe, one big killer is buildings which were designed on the assumption that, even after a rare hot day, things would cool off significantly at night and buildings could shed heat. Sustained higher-than-planned temperatures take away that ability to shed heat overnight, so instead buildings retain heat, and keep getting blasted each day, and that is when people start dying.
Even here in the US you can see this. I live in the SF Bay area, in an un-air-conditioned building. Most of the time, I don't need A/C, because I'm in an east-facing apartment that can cool off through the afternoon once the sun's no longer coming directly in, especially with windows open and a bit of breeze, and then become downright chilly at night. But sometimes we now get sustained high temperatures for days on end, and when that happens people really do start dying here (and I turn on a portable A/C unit, leave it running 24 hours, and even sleep on the couch to be in front of it at night).
> Your comment is absurd. People in the places you mentioned don’t choose to be without heat or air conditioning because they want to
Calm down, parent mentioned Europe as well. For example, from first hand experience, I can confirm that people usually don't have an AC in their homes and many office buildings in Germany; and they sure can afford it. It's usual to have outside temperatures above 30°C during German summers for a few weeks. In contrast to American homes, the usual European dwelling is constructed such that the inside temperature reaches 25°C only after a few consecutive days of heat. A fan is more than enough to survive that.
I’m in Holland and this summer has been the worse. It finally rained here once last week, and before that it was 2-3 months without rain. It’s so dry that the ivys that normally tolerate anything you throw at them are starting to dry out and die. Last week it was 30+ every day. The past 3 months or so it’s been 26+ every day. Most people I know don’t have AC because we’ve never really needed it. As you say it’s usually just 2-3 weeks that it’s hot.
This summer I and at least 4 friends of mine have bought portable AC units. It’s especially wasteful and inefficient because basically all of our windows swing completely open from the side instead of sliding up/down or left/right so so much air is getting in/out. But you know what? I don’t care anymore. I wish I could care, but when it’s 31 degrees inside my flat on the ground floor at 11pm even with all my windows open, and I can’t fall asleep because I’m sweating even though I’m laying in bed in just boxers? I just can’t. AC is a godsend.
Whenever the temperature drops to 5C in Hong Kong, old people definitely die simply because most places lack heat at all.
I lived in China for 10 years and every place I rented had wall mounted AC, at least. Beijing summers are too hot to survive without it, not just spoilt Americans have a problem with the heat.
They say it isn't really the extreme heat or cold that kills most people though, because you generally either prepare for that or just try and avoid it. Rather it's the less extreme heat/cold that people think isn't going to be a problem that often turns out to be the real problem.
They’ll have to install it if they ever want to sell the building. People that buy buildings are rarely interested in living someone else’s experiment. I could almost guarantee that given two buildings, the one without proper HVAC is going to be harder to sell.
This is why paperweights exist. Office buildings all used to have ventilator shafts which effectively created lower pressure in the interior of the building. In order to make it work, you needed to have your office window open AND an interior window open (typically above your office door, so you could still keep your door closed).
As you can imagine, there was a lot of wind whipping through offices. This is why the paperweight was invented -- and also why no one uses paperweights anymore.
I'd always choose one that have AC (and turn it off then I feel like it)
But that's the thing with socialism - it doesn't work without coercion, so as long as you don't have a choice or are heavily taxed to not make a "wrong" one, you'll love our green buildings!
I think it's mostly a function of building age. A lot of Seattle housing stock dates to 1920-1940. Apartments tend to be newer; certainly the new large apartment buildings all have it (as well as modern spec insulation).
Fair enough. However, the home I lived in for 20 years (on the Eastside) was built in 1990 and had no A/C. Such was the case for most homes I visited. When I moved to Phoenix, the home I lived in, built in 1912, had A/C.
I've been in Seattle the last 5 years, 3 of those in new "luxury" buildings. No apartment building I've lived in or toured has AC in-unit, though newer buildings will have it in common areas only. Further, many places have leases that disallow window-mounted AC units (not that the awning windows would cooperate). It's rough, esp. with windows on only one side for most apartments.
I'd imagine developer incentives + LEED certifications are going to maintain the status quo.
Only in luxury or eco buildings. Most of the places I looked at in downtown Bellevue last year either lacked AC, or lacked windows you could open and had very centralized AC (the green buildings).
My current place has a ceiling fan because it is on the top floor. It can get really hot up here, but still no AC unless you buy it yourself. It was built in the early 00s. Even the fairly newish building (< 10 years old) we looked at next to City Center lacked AC.
Seattle is hostile to comfort IMO. They deliberately make it hard and expensive to park in the city, even though it’s not really an option for anyone with kids to live without a car. I wish the owner of this building the best of luck in finding businesses willing to lease the space. Political correctness can’t be sustained if you have to sweat profusely to do it.
I have kids, and have a car, but take the bus into downtown Seattle so I don't have to park or deal with traffic. It's an option that works fine for me, so I'd hardly say there's no option other than parking.
And while I'd say I'm reasonably open minded, I'm not particularly politically correct or making myself uncomfortable to do this. On the contrary, I enjoy the opportunity to kick back and read on my iPad instead of driving.
How do you drop off your kids to school or do massive runs on groceries? How about extracurriculars? How about picking them up from school? Swim team perhaps (have to drive all over the state to participate in competitions), or even soccer, or math tutor. All of this requires a car pretty much. But that is a tangent, as another HN reader pointed out. What’s not a tangent is that I will not work in an office that’s hotter than about 72F. It’s simply out of the question.
Simple, I use the park and ride. I still drive to do all these things on the way to and from the P&R, and it's really quite convenient. I totally understand this won't work out for everyone, though.
Just like that office, it may not work out for you to work in such temperatures, but you can't necessarily extrapolate to conclude that others will be miserable. I've lived in Seattle since the 80's and having AC everywhere seems to be a pretty new thing here. Until recently most houses and schools didn't have AC since the climate is so mild, and I never thought it was particularly uncomfortable in the summer as long as a fan was running.
My dad built our home near Jacksonville Florida to take advantage of the direction of prevailing winds. It was essentially all open windows and ceiling fans with no air conditioning.
During the summer it would be so hot and humid in the house that you were wet again before you could finish drying off after a shower. During the winter the complete lack of insulation meant that temperatures inside the house would get down into the 40s during cold snaps.
On the plus side he was able to brag about us never having an electric bill above $20.
Getting rid of AC is not that helpful in combatting climate change. Unlike, heating which needs fossil fuels to work efficiently, AC runs well on electricity. In addition, the days that are hot are correlated with days where you have good sunlight, so solar should be able to generate a lot of electricity. Finally, unless we are able to deploy cheap, abundant carbon-free electricity throughout the world, we are screwed. You are never going to convince the general population to make themselves more uncomfortable and give up technology for a benefit 30 years in the future.
Yeah, better to work in a dog-friendly, glass whiteboard panopticon with lots of obligatory-alcohol-focused meeting spaces and management spending more on the coffee station than on sincere productivity tools for professional engineers.
That's a bit of a false dichotomy. There's no reason this place with no AC doesn't also pride itself on being dog friendly or have issues with spending money on the wrong things.
Not sure where you get that idea. I lived in Seattle for 3.5 years. When I was a software developer there I never encountered literally any of what you said beyond whiteboards and a lot of glass. (Literally surrounded by glass since I worked on the 13th floor of UW Tower)
I am sorry but this sounds stupid. You do not build non ac buildings with glass exteriors. You build them with bricks. Moreover you have windows for cross ventilation, high roof, shades over windows and thick brick walls elsewhere to keep the sun out.
Another, more scientific way could be to pump air through a 20-30 deep well so that it gets naturally cooled and use it to ventilate the building.
Exactly. In Brazil, there are quite a few big buildings build with this methodology (long wells that cool the air). I can think of one hospital in the northeast, one big factory (printing business) near São Paulo, etc.
It works exceptionally well, but as OP mentioned, glass exteriors are not a good idea.
I think this idea is really interesting. Perhaps Seattle is temperate enough, but a backup AC system may make sense. You’d still get the energy savings for at least some percent of the year.
Yes. Germany is incredibly cheap that way, claiming it's "not worth it due to short summers". Doesn't matter. If you need it only 2-3 months a year, that's still a NEED right there. Especially during 38C days.
I just got back from a long sabbatical in Spain and 1 through 3 I'm with you. Why do people just accept flys in their house? Why don't the windows have screens? I don't think I saw a single screen on a window the whole time. Drove me up a wall. At least AC is decently common in Spain, at least more common than I've seen in most other major European cities.
In Switzerland it's hit and miss. New buildings usually have good air conditioning, but anything a bit older doesn't. And there are a lot of older buildings in Switzerland. It's a country that has 4 very pronounced seasons, so if there's a heatwave (like right now), it usually means hot offices... the productivity impact is quite significant.
Seems un-American to me. Seattle is only about two hours north of me so the weather is similar and it's hot as hell some days during the summer with temperatures around 100 degrees. The inside would probably be 90 during those days. I worked at a place that was 85 during the winter, got extremely sick and quit. I couldn't imagine working in this place in the summer. The greatest thing about America is air conditioning. I guess no one told these guys. It sure would be a huge reason to avoid being employed there. Luckily it's just one building. No wonder no one else wants to do this.
This reminds me the office environment in Germany. The landlords and office management will go over the top with the most sophisticated and absurd fans, installations, and running water cooled radiators, but will never, never, install the bloody AC. Probably because the AC industry (whatever that would mean) is not big there, while all the other industries are. Have a merry >37 C this week:)
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 251 ms ] threadEvidently he bought that land in 1988.
The most interesting part of google mapping it was his curious gate. He's got a really weirdly designed entry gate. Couldn't find any info on it, though. My friends usually have their initials or their "crest" as gates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0oFJ2jbkDI, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oej6EvxBJkI - here's a couple examples (she has visited others as well.
Short of that I'd settle for a basement. Someday perhaps.
Google "Rockland Ranch".
A standard three-bedroom cave home with lounge, kitchen, and bathroom can be excavated out of the rock in the hillside for a similar price to building a house on the surface. However, dugouts remain at a constant temperature, while surface buildings need air conditioning, especially during the summer months, when temperatures often exceed 40 °C (104 °F).
There are several motels offering underground accommodation, ranging from a few rooms to the entire motel being a dug-out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy
In many instances it would cost you many many times more to build underground than any savings in heating and cooling do to the problems with underground building poses
In my area basements have continual problems with moisture penetration because we have high annual rain fall, soil that holds water, and high water tables making building under ground very very expensive and over 30+ years a continual maintenance problem for the owner
Do we get the cognitive dissonance of how this flies against the 'other' hacker dogma about some people are late starters? How uneven sleep cycles are unhealthy?
Do we get how air pollution kills millions each year?
Do we get how we KNOW open plan offices suck but they are everywhere because floor space size is a huge cost driver.
These buildings are cool art projects, cool experimental design projects, awesome to have in the world, but they just don't work as a solution.
AC is here to stay. It's healthy, it's $ efficient and I'd like to see given the freedoms and efficiencies it gives if it truly does costs us more energy than the alternatives. AC allows us to live tightly in cities, true environmentalism.
In other words, no better than working in a shaded outdoor area. That’s too hot to work in my opinion. I think they can do a lot better.
Um, no I don't think I'll enjoy working @ 78F much.
Those of us who suffer from this would LOVE to trade places with the people who complain of the terrible effort of “putting on a sweater in the summer time” when it’s a bit too cool inside.
Unfortunately, we do not have the luxury of peeling off our skin when we are sweating uncontrollably in a 78F room, that some say is “not too hot”.
It’s important to recognize that humans are very diverse creatures, and office environments have to deal with the complex task of accommodating a wide range of physiologies.
In natural conditions, I'd expect people who sweat more to actually be more comfortable with natural airflow causing evaporative cooling. Unfortunately, in modern well sealed buildings with little air flow, this adaptation would be counterproductive.
It sounds like this building was an experiment aimed at rediscovering what a natural air flow would feel like in an office environment. I love my AC, personally, but I'd still be curious to see what 78 feels like in that building, it might not be so bad. I do enjoy working outside on the patio when it's warm out with a nice cool breeze.
Absolutely, unquestionably, YES! (Certainly for some people). Those sufficiently uncomfortable would migrate to climates better suited to their physiology, if their physiology didn’t adapt to the environment; for example, my ancestors were from extreme cold environments, and I am without a doubt FAR more comfortable in 50 degree F weather in a T shirt than I am in 70 degree weather. And to me with the right clothing, everything down to and even below freezing is quite pleasant.
Prior to much modern technology, just surviving and staying alive as a human was a miserable, painful experience.
We have it so, so good today, compared to our ancestors just a hundred years ago, let alone thousands. Virtually every measure of human suffering (extreme poverty, starvation, sickness, death, etc) is dramatically lowering with each generation.
It is a wonderful thing that modern advancements allows us to be comfortable, which then further frees our minds to pursue even greater and more wonderful endeavors.
Isn't that like asking "Do you think people were terribly uncomfortable using the outhouse in the middle of winter before indoor plumbing was invented?"
Uh, yeah. Life before AC, indoor plumbing, electricity, refrigeration, etc. sucked hard.
Neither me or my wife feel like that lifestyle "sucked hard", although it certainly had challenges. Now we have a nice house in an affluent suburb and have plenty of luxuries, yet this lifestyle also has its challenges. Whether or not it sucks seems largely a matter of mindset and perspective.
The outhouse, on the other hand, was almost zero maintenance. The only cleaning I had to do was occasional sweeping. It was nicely made from cedar wood with plenty of natural ventilation (no door), it never smelt terrible or felt disgusting. It takes a lot of work and money to make an indoor bathroom stay as nice as my outhouse was naturally.
I agree that you will find very many people in the developed world who think that going to an outhouse at 50 below would probably suck hard, but relatively few of them have first-hand experience so that's a hypothetical situation for them.
In Alaska you can certainly find plenty of people who voluntarily live this way. Not out of poverty or being a total recluse, but because the negative parts simply don't turn out to be as bad as it might seem before you've tried it, and the positive experiences associated with living closer to nature are deeply rewarding.
We have AC now, lets use it
I do not have the desire to Sweat all day every day in my office while I am attempting to use a computer or do my work
I do not have the desire to have my body be cooled by "natural airflow causing evaporative cooling" caused by my profuse uncomfortable and unsightly sweating over everything
I do not have the this desire, what I have a desire for is Air Conditioning, a modern convenience that human invented so we would no longer need to use "natural airflow causing evaporative cooling"
For me anything above 21 C (~70 F) and sunny is uncomfortable miserable for me. I am serious. Everybody seems to enjoy the sunlight and talk about how depressed they get in the winters when it’s dark but I have the exact 100% opposite. During the summers I can’t go outside. Like, it’s not physically impossible and I can tolerate going outside long enough to walk to the store and so on, but the thought of “enjoying my time outside in the warm summer sun” elucidates the same thoughts that you’d get if I asked you to stick your hand inside a garbage disposal. I’m not even being hyperbolic right now. The thought of being outside when it’s sunny and 21+ degrees seriously shuts me down entirely. I’m basically depressed all summer and spring because of the sun, because of the temperature. I’m depressed because it means I cant go outside and enjoy the things I enjoy in the fall and winter: going on long bike rides, trail running, hiking and camping, etc.
For whatever reason, the moment the bright sun shines in my face or the first bead of sweat beads up on my body I just 100% shut down. Nothing is fun anymore. Nothing is enjoyable anymore.
I’ve spoken with several therapists to try to get some help with this and nothing people say or tell me has helped. It doesn’t help that everybody things I’m just being a big baby either.
But come fall and winter, I f-king love live. I love waking up before the sun rises and getting in a nice 30 minute run in the dark. I love getting into work when it’s dark and leaving work when it’s dark. I love walking around town or visiting nearby cities (Europe) in the winter because I’m not sweating the entire time. I love feeling the super cold wind hit me as I’m cycling long 20+ km rides. In the spring and summer I love being outside on the days when it’s overcast, gray, raining aka “depressing weather.” It doesn’t bother me at all. I love looking outside my office windows or my living room window and seeing gray clouds all day every day. In the winters I can wear T-shirt’s down to ~5 C, and I can wear just a hoodie and jeans down to the negatives as long as I have gloves.
I would love it if I could stand being in the sun, being in the warmth, but I can’t and I’ve tried. Like a lot of people have wrote: you can always wear more clothes. You can always light the place up. You can always use an umbrella. What can I do when it’s unbearbly hot and sunny and I’m already wearing shorts and a T-shirt? Absolutely nothing.
As I said I think it’s wasteful especially cause I can’t seal my windows. But if you read my post then you’d see that my limit of caring stops when I’m sweating in my bed at 11pm at night because it’s still 30+ despite me being on the ground floor.
As for the implication. I really didn't imply anything. I have no idea of expounded's weight. Being overweight would be one explanation of his experience, but not the only one. I didn't know, so I asked. It certainly seems to be a touchy subject for him or her.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I don't personally mind short warm bursts when I'm sitting in a sauna and getting a frigid soaking afterwards, but I do tend to sweat and it's really very annoying having to wear cloth during an office day that that are soaked - and my skin also hates me for it. I also tend to feel immediately miserable when I get direct sunshine on my head, which is why I tend to wear a hat - though that makes the sweating issue worse.
I kind of enjoy the time of my commute the most where I can set the AC as I please and put on some fairly dark driving sunglasses while listening to a book. Peaceful and comfortable time that is.
I also got a set of office glasses with some 50% shading and a blue light filter for those places that insist on 1500 Lumen/m2 brightness.
I concur about the lack of understanding of a lot of people for these issues. "Sun is good, stop whining" is really irritating. People are different, not every one likes ice cream, bright light/sun, waking up early, etc.
I don't think the point of the building in this article was to force warmer temperatures on everybody. It sounded more like an experiment in increasing airflow. I think it would be most beneficial if they could work out a way to keep temperatures lower without sacrificing the air flow.
As an engineer, I firmly believe that innovation is driven through the process of starting with an experiment, discovering weak points, and steadily iterating to mitigate the weaknesses without sacrificing the advantages. But this process must be firmly grounded in a deep understanding of experiences of end-users who interact with the product, and the core objective should be improving quality of life, accounting for the variability in what that means to different people.
Swimming well I am in cool water at the point does sweating is not really needed.
Further I am not in Business Causal attire when I am hiking, and hiking or other outdoor exercise is an activity where one is expected to be sweating, however in a office environment one is not expected to have sweat dripping from the face, have their shirt soaked in sweat, etc.
And we have a very mild climate, so it would only be this hot in late afternoon for a dozen days or so each year. On such days I'd just say "I'm uncomfortable so I'm going to WFH the rest of the day." I'm pretty sure that would be acceptable for this architecture firm. It's never been a problem that I leave work early due to traffic from baseball games near my downtown Seattle office, for example.
I totally understand that you have a different heat tolerance and physiological reaction to heat than I do. I'd go crazy exercising in a gym when it feels so much more stimulating overall to be outside, whereas mid-80's temperature with low humidity is just mildly unpleasant to me. But I respect that other's feel differently about it.
However, the difference between 78 and your ideal temperature is probably not so great, especially compared to many other parts of the country with much higher temps and humidity. I wouldn't entirely discount the possibility that this Terry Building might not be as uncomfortable for you as it sounds. And if it did turn out to be unbearably uncomfortable for you, I wouldn't discount the possibility of working together with your team and management to find an agreeable solution.
I admit the possibility that this whole article is a puff piece meant as PR for this firm, and in reality they're all miserable inside but maintain a charade of happiness to hide from potential customers the fact that their heat chimney was in fact an engineering disaster.
The simpler explanation, which jibes with my personal experience as a longtime Seattleite, is that it's just not that big of a deal to do without AC here as long as its a relatively small building and you get the airflow right.
When I have my own office with my own AC Zone/Controls it would be set to 62 Degrees. That is a significant difference from 78.
My current office building has shared zones and sets the AC at about 73, it is bearable most days provided I do not need to do anything more than use my computer, even then I have a desk fan blowing air at me continually while at my desk. I am not however sweating or overly uncomfortable, the fan is able to mitigate 90% of my comfort.
However it does not take much physical work in that environment to push me over the edge in to sweating.
as to "accommodate attire appropriate for the temperature" the thing is some people might like wearing shorts, sandals, and a beach shirt to work, I do not even own these things. I don't wear suits, but I wear long pants, I wear a button down shirt and that is it. I do not believe an office environment should look like everyone is going to the beach. I am sure that is old fashioned thinking however, i believe Professionals should dress professionally.
What has not been so variable are things I'd consider more core aspects of professional behavior:
* caring deeply about customer needs and expectations, exercising grit, determination, and ingenuity to satisfy them
* understanding business concerns like cost management and delivering value to both investors and customers, striking a balance between competing demands
* understanding and caring about teammates, working effectively with a team to achieve above 2 objectives. maintaining a solution oriented mindset.
Here's how I might apply my interpretation of professionalism to the hypothetical situation that you were a capable coworker at Weber Thompson who felt uncomfortable due to the approximately 16 degree temperature excess on a hot day: propose partitioning off a space and installing air conditioning there for those who want it.
I don't see any inherent technical obstacles or insurmountable business concerns in that solution. It would balance the desires of some employees for connection with outside air, without causing discomfort to others who for one reason or another have a different preference. Customers might appreciate the flexibility to make the space suitable for a wider variety of preferences, and ask if we can do the same for them.
Yes, absolutely. I grew up without AC and now I jokingly tell my fiance my entire career has been motivated to ensure I maintain access to AC the rest of my life.
I grew up in a very cold place (MN) compared to most - the cold didn't matter much to me. I'm a t-shirt in 40 degree weather sort of guy. The hot summer months were absolute utter hell though, even with fans and sleeping in the basement/etc. To this day I think this had a huge effect on my sleeping patterns and thus other health problems later on in life.
I do think one of the elephants in the room is the obesity issue. I certainly have noticed I get a lot hotter with 40lbs extra on me. When the average American is overweight I'm sure this has moved the "herd preference temperature" down a couple degrees the past few decades.
Fat people?
I really don't understand what your problem is with this.
A few observations I’ve made:
- Even when it’s this temperature, a fan blowing air over you really helps to increase comfort. Too much airflow is also uncomfortable (messes with the NC on my headphones), and most desk fans are too powerful even on their lowest settings.
- I’ve started eating less which seems to reduce my metabolism causing the heat to effect me less. It’s a trade-off as if I eat too little I can’t work as effectively, but there’s a local optimum vs being too uncomfortable from the heat.
- Shorts and t-shirt everyday. Even then I’m still sweating for the next hour if I do anything strenuous outside.
- People who are always cold don’t seem to understand the discomfort people experience from heat. In my home country in the depths of winter it often gets to 15c/60F or less in old buildings. I’d much rather that with lots of layers and hot drinks, than be too hot. Maybe they feel the same about the heat though, can anyone comfortably work in an office environment that is 35c/95F?
This may have to do with the climate you grew up in. For example, I absolutely love outside temperatures between 28-35C, provided a dry climate and access to water (sea/river/lake).
It's because offices are stuck air conditioning to a level that makes suits comfortable. There was a big brouhaha about it in England a couple years ago.
https://www.amazon.com/Charades-Astronaut-Space-Costume-Jump...
You catch a breeze wearing that, and it's like wearing a weightless AC unit on your back. Hand to God.
To flip back around to your point though, I definitely understand it as my girlfriend has raynaud's so I'll be in my apartment with the fan on still hot while my girlfriend will be next to me freezing with her hands turning white because she is cold. We are hoping our future kids will even out our weird temperature imbalances and be normal.
So, pick your poison and while it may be just that the grass is always greener on the other side, I would definitely prefer to run on the colder side than the hotter side especially since I prefer to wear jeans and a sweatshirt/jacket over shorts and a t-shirt.
Edit: My girlfriend said she would rather be like me and be too hot than be too cold so maybe it is just the grass is always greener on the other side.
For most office spaces it's not so much the temp that freezes me it's the breeze while I'm sitting in a chair typing.
If so, then I would talk to your coworkers to see if you can get switched to a better desk location for your medical condition.
I'm one of those who would kill to be under a vent.
Alternatively, file a grievance through your shop steward.
This may be my own biases at play here, but it's really not that hard to warm up by dressing warmer. You don't have that option for cooling down unless you want to wear a vest full of icepacks or something. If the goal is to maximize comfort, it seems like the thermostat should be set lower rather than higher.
That’s the same as asking, “Who would seriously just switch jobs because of more money?”
It’s a quality of living thing. If you don’t loose anything but can gain something, why not do it?
I mean if your job only allowed you to sit on a small unpadded stool, wouldn't that motivate you to find a new job?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I cannot use my keyboard while wearing winter gloves, so there are limits. Sadly, I have tried.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
78 in the building along with hot computers means you are quickly going to have a rather uncomfortable situation.
The fact this company has to adjust work hours to accommodate their “progressiveness” means they actually haven’t solved anything. It’s just virtue signaling. They could just as easily have their team work nights to get the same effect — but then they wouldn’t get media attention for just how innovative they are. Windows open in California means you also subject yourself to wildfire particulates, smog and other pollutants that HVAC systems mitigate. “Fresh air” is nice — when it’s actually fresh, and in most cities, it isn’t. Even Paris has had serious air quality situations. City air just isn’t all that clean. In Beijing, “fresh air” is downright toxic. I am not sure how eliminating air conditioning is considered an innovation. Air conditioning was one of the most important inventions, anyone that says otherwise never spent any time in an un-air-conditioned New Orleans house with box fans creating a cross breeze of 100% humidity. The nostalgia for the good old days is felt by those that never had to live through those days.
This story reads to me like nonsense. Seattle, while it can get “hot” is positively frigid when compared to much of the rest of the country. Try that in Atlanta, Houston or Arizona. This story is the equivalent of a Miami building being built without heating — it isn’t any kind of groundbreaking innovation. When a building in Minnesota is built without heat, then I might be interested.
What’s really innovative is how Apple Park handles fresh air and HVAC. Apple Park isn’t 78 degrees inside — it’s much cooler; they went far beyond the “innovation” in this Seattle building. This sort of innovation can be done, but being proud of a 78 degree internal temperature is like being proud when someone’s kid stops wetting the bed at age 12. It’s only a big deal to those who are experiencing it, but to the rest of us, it’s just self-congratulatory bullshit of the most mundane sort: big deal, you designed a building that isn’t quite at hot as the outdoors using groundbreaking technology that is equivalent to an open window.
I don't know why you seem to be so riled up about this building. Why can't you read an article about a building that is achieving sustainability in an interesting way without being triggered by it? Sure, it has it's characteristics that some people might not prefer, but it's nothing to get so upset over.
BTW 73-74 is not "like it cold" that is standard temp most offices should be at for the balance.
62f is liking it cold, and I like it cold. I have been known to wear short sleeves, and shorts outside in 45-50 degree weather.
I can handle the heat and humidity and be comfortable, but not while wearing business casual.
People who complain about having to put on a sweater have no idea how miserable it is for those of us who have to sit for 8+ hours in an environment sweating profusely when it gets too hot.
This is why office AC is the way it is. You can put on a sweater. I cannot take off my skin.
Like fucking roasting all day...
Without electricity?
78 is tolerable with a breeze (and moderate humidity).
I live in the Seattle area without AC and it's fine. Open the windows at night with a window fan to bring in cool air (I don't have a breeze-inducing courtyard), close the windows and the blinds in the daytime to keep out the sun.
Even in 90 degree weather outside, the bedrooms on the third floor stay under 75 degrees and by bedtime it's typically cooler than that so the fan keeps it cool.
Maybe for you.... over 75 is not tolerable to me, I can not sleep at over 72 even if I have an industrial fan blowing over me....
My AC is set year round in my home to 68-70 and that is pushing it for me, In the winter my heat is set to 60-65
I love the cold, this is why I live in the Northern US and not Florida
On my A/C unit, 25C is the factory default setting in cooling mode (20C for heating). I don't know why but in the US, people tend to set their A/C to arctic mode.
Just think about all the people who have to actual work, as in manual labour, outside in the full heat, and you're complaining about sitting at a desk at 25 degrees. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Also while physical labor is definitely hard under the heat, intellectual work can grind to a halt depending on the temperature
To the point where I'm really skeptical of places that don't offer any kind of climate control where it is needed (and apparently that's quickly becoming "everywhere")
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Not as catchy a title I get.
It's kind of offputting how spoiled and fragile the Americans in this thread seem to be responding to the thought of a room without A/C.
Now I'm suspicious that I could grow to be comfortable at temperatures several degrees higher...
Your comment is absurd. People in the places you mentioned don’t choose to be without heat or air conditioning because they want to, it’s generally because either the climate is less extreme and more comfortable or because they can’t afford it. Ask a family in Monterrey, Mexico if they’d like to have air conditioning if cost were no object. Very few would decline such an offer.
What an absurd comment to make. Of course Parisians have heaters - it reaches low temperatures there in the winter. It doesn't reach those temperatures in most parts of Mexico.
I've lived through 115 degree summers in Texas. Of course we have air conditioning here, because it's necessary. But we aren't talking about Texas, we're talking about Seattle, where the ambient indoor temperature is 78 degrees. I wouldn't say someone is fragile for not wanting to live in 115 degrees without A/C, but yes, if you think 78 degrees is "way too hot" as some of the comments in this thread say, you are fragile.
>People in the places you mentioned don’t choose to be without heat or air conditioning because they want to, it’s generally because either the climate is less extreme and more comfortable or because they can’t afford it.
No, you have no idea what you're talking about. I've also lived in Singapore where the temperature averages 90ish degrees every day with near 100% humidity. Even among those who can afford it, most choose to forgo A/C because it simply isn't necessary. Even those who do choose to purchase an A/C do not turn it on because most find the addition of A/C to make rooms uncomfortably cold. This also goes for the portions of central and eastern Europe that I've lived in, as well as the portions of S. America I've visited. The human body is perfectly capable of being very comfortable at 75-80 degrees ambient temperature.
Furthermore, your entire second paragraph hinges on the hypothetical "if cost were no object", which is absurd. The entire point of non-A/C buildings (like the one that this entire thread is about) is that they reduce cost (both monetarily and environmentally). The cost is the entire point.
My original comment wasn't referring to to the 'fragility' of being personally unadjusted to other temperatures. It was referring to the 'fragility' of a mindset that apparently cannot entertain the mere idea that it is possible to be adjusted to those temperatures, and are apparently so triggered by such an idea that they make comments such as yours.
It's not really useful to make this type of comment. The sneering at, say, European "so-called heat waves" where temperatures are comparable to an average summer day in many parts of the US fails to take into account that sustained temperatures at those levels, in places unaccustomed to them, can indeed easily be fatal, and do not represent a failure of the residents to adapt. Rather, they occur because the residents have adapted -- to the recent-historical climate of their region!
In Europe, one big killer is buildings which were designed on the assumption that, even after a rare hot day, things would cool off significantly at night and buildings could shed heat. Sustained higher-than-planned temperatures take away that ability to shed heat overnight, so instead buildings retain heat, and keep getting blasted each day, and that is when people start dying.
Even here in the US you can see this. I live in the SF Bay area, in an un-air-conditioned building. Most of the time, I don't need A/C, because I'm in an east-facing apartment that can cool off through the afternoon once the sun's no longer coming directly in, especially with windows open and a bit of breeze, and then become downright chilly at night. But sometimes we now get sustained high temperatures for days on end, and when that happens people really do start dying here (and I turn on a portable A/C unit, leave it running 24 hours, and even sleep on the couch to be in front of it at night).
Calm down, parent mentioned Europe as well. For example, from first hand experience, I can confirm that people usually don't have an AC in their homes and many office buildings in Germany; and they sure can afford it. It's usual to have outside temperatures above 30°C during German summers for a few weeks. In contrast to American homes, the usual European dwelling is constructed such that the inside temperature reaches 25°C only after a few consecutive days of heat. A fan is more than enough to survive that.
This summer I and at least 4 friends of mine have bought portable AC units. It’s especially wasteful and inefficient because basically all of our windows swing completely open from the side instead of sliding up/down or left/right so so much air is getting in/out. But you know what? I don’t care anymore. I wish I could care, but when it’s 31 degrees inside my flat on the ground floor at 11pm even with all my windows open, and I can’t fall asleep because I’m sweating even though I’m laying in bed in just boxers? I just can’t. AC is a godsend.
I lived in China for 10 years and every place I rented had wall mounted AC, at least. Beijing summers are too hot to survive without it, not just spoilt Americans have a problem with the heat.
As you can imagine, there was a lot of wind whipping through offices. This is why the paperweight was invented -- and also why no one uses paperweights anymore.
But that's the thing with socialism - it doesn't work without coercion, so as long as you don't have a choice or are heavily taxed to not make a "wrong" one, you'll love our green buildings!
I'd imagine developer incentives + LEED certifications are going to maintain the status quo.
My current place has a ceiling fan because it is on the top floor. It can get really hot up here, but still no AC unless you buy it yourself. It was built in the early 00s. Even the fairly newish building (< 10 years old) we looked at next to City Center lacked AC.
And while I'd say I'm reasonably open minded, I'm not particularly politically correct or making myself uncomfortable to do this. On the contrary, I enjoy the opportunity to kick back and read on my iPad instead of driving.
Just like that office, it may not work out for you to work in such temperatures, but you can't necessarily extrapolate to conclude that others will be miserable. I've lived in Seattle since the 80's and having AC everywhere seems to be a pretty new thing here. Until recently most houses and schools didn't have AC since the climate is so mild, and I never thought it was particularly uncomfortable in the summer as long as a fan was running.
It’s 85 degrees outside the Terry Thomas building; inside it’s 78 degrees.
I guess it can't be done. Or if it can, this building is not proof.
During the summer it would be so hot and humid in the house that you were wet again before you could finish drying off after a shower. During the winter the complete lack of insulation meant that temperatures inside the house would get down into the 40s during cold snaps.
On the plus side he was able to brag about us never having an electric bill above $20.
Personally, I wouldn't work there.
Your reaction is over the top.
Another, more scientific way could be to pump air through a 20-30 deep well so that it gets naturally cooled and use it to ventilate the building.
[1] https://www.google.com/maps/place/225+Terry+Ave+N+%23200,+Se...
Are you mixing them up with the building next door?
But it is becoming more popular.
I have been impressed staying at hostels that had, what I would call, “suicide windows”.
In Toronto apartments, you have to take invasive action to let the window open more than 10cm.
It is funny people discuss 25°C. We had last week 36°C inside of our office, and a solution from the company? Work from home.
I’m not sure what’s more unbearable:
1) The number of people (age 22 to 70) that claim air conditioning makes you ill
2) The heat
3) The lack of screens on windows in a city built near a marsh (mosquitoes)
At least i’m by the sea until today.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator
When the sun is directly overhead you get maximum solar power and that's when you need the most chilling.
1) in many places, heat peaks around 4pm rather than noon in the summer because heat from the sun accumulates throughout the day
2) days when it’s 85+F with 90% humidity and overcast (such as the last week or two here in NYC)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#Usage