Suzushisa – a pleasant feeling of coolness
T. Kobayashi (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
G. Coumans – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
A.M. Eijkelenboom – Mentor (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
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Abstract
Suzushisa is a Japanese term and can be translated into «a pleasant feeling of coolness».
This feeling is central to this thesis, as Tokyo, the capital of Japan, has experienced in recent years, a rise in day- and night-time temperatures associated with the Urban Heat Island effect, resulting in an increasing reliance on mechanically driven air-conditioning systems. At the same time, growing cooling demands generate additional anthropogenic heat emissions, reinforcing a feedback loop that further intensifies local overheating.
Simultaneously, the Japanese government promotes energy conservation campaigns that shift the thermal challenges of heat exposure from a broader environmental context into tangible, physically and mentally health-impacting conditions within Tokyo’s ageing office environments.
Within these contemporary urgencies, this thesis explores how physiological and psychological heat stress can be mitigated through the retrofitting of Japan’s first high-rise office building, the Kasumigaseki building, completed in 1968. Its approach focuses on reducing the measured indoor temperatures through integrating vernacular Japanese architectural knowledge on passive cooling practices, while strengthening cognitive thermal resilience through data-driven insights derived from first-hand eye-tracking research.
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