Dr Anna Chatzimichali, a senior lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, is a partner on the STARPOL (Socio-Spatial Thermal justice) project, an interdisciplinary £1.18 million initiative led by the University of Strathclyde to shape new, improved strategies and policies for the housing and public health sectors.
STRAPOL will bring together architectural, engineering, psychological, legal and genetic knowledge and explore how people’s exposure to uncomfortable or dangerous indoor temperatures is shaped by building design, energy systems, legal structures and social inequalities. It will consider the cumulative effects of climate change, severe health problems and the cost of living in the emergence of ‘thermal injustice’ — unequal access to comfortable and safe indoor temperatures, regardless of income, health or housing type.
Dr Chatzimichali, who specialises in home energy management and the societal impact of technology, is leading work examining how designers make decisions about thermal environments and how those decisions are experienced by people in their everyday lives.
She said: “Design decisions are embedded, quite literally, in the spaces we inhabit and the temperatures we endure. I am very excited to lead an important part of the project that examines designers’ cognitive processes and embodied thermal experiences to reveal how power and accountability shape everyday health and wellbeing.”
Professor Sonja Dragojlovic-Oliveira, from the University of Strathclyde’s Department of Architecture and lead researcher on STARPOL, said: “Human exposure to thermal extremes is linked to rising chronic health conditions, increased hospital admissions and, in some cases, death.
“The challenge is not just a housing issue; it is also a design, legal, biological and psychological problem. This project will co-develop a new interdisciplinary model that will deliver new knowledge for designers and the housing sector to account for diversity of thermal need and understanding the implications of thermal injustice.”
The project has received funding of £1.18 million from UKRI (UK Research & Innovation), and alongside the Universities of Bath and Strathclyde, includes academic partners at the University of Edinburgh and University of Oxford.
Public Health Scotland, Architecture & Design Scotland, Julie Godefroy Sustainability, research company terraXcube, property developers Bywater, energy analyst Regen and engineering consultancy Max Fordham are also partner organisations in the project.