Harry Barber Royal College of Art / Imperial College London Innovation Design Engineering
Heatwaves are becoming more frequent and the world is heating up. We
all want to feel more comfortable and our instinct is to turn to Air
Conditioners (AC) to cool down. However, ACs are a fundamental part of
the problem and continuing to use them will force us deeper into a
vicious cycle of heating up the world around us.
What if we could change our perception of the temperature around us,
rather than changing the temperature of the environment itself?
The Saiga wearable changes our perception of the temperature in two
ways. First, it provides cooling by conduction onto specific locations
on the neck. Second, it allows the wearer to breathe cold air when they
need a boost of relief from the temperature. Both of these techniques
have been validated as effective ways to change our perception of
temperature and improve our thermal comfort in hot spaces.
This project was conducted as a group effort between Kevin Chiam, Nacho Vilanova, Wei Haw Huang and Harry Barber.
