Introduction

Buildings primarily a form of shelter from the elements

Man ha at his disposal two resources to protect himself from his environment:
Physical barriers
The use of energy
External environment: its characteristics are outside the survival r the comfort
range of human activity
Hence the need for a filter or screen to reduce this range:
(a) Clothing: non-location specific, social constraints, functional constraints
(b) Building envelope and its elements: the microclimate
(c) Environmental control systems: energy is consumed to deliver human
comfort

Environmental control systems

Environmental control systems are those systems in a building which by the
expenditure of energy modify the internal environment of the building to suit human
requirements.
Examples of environmental systems include:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Lighting system
Ventilation system
Air-conditioning system
Transportation system
Hot water system
Heating system

Sensation and perception

5 Basic senses: vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste
The ease with which we use our senses, seems simple and straight forward
VISION:

the simple act of opening our eyes

HEARING:

no moving parts of our ears simply paying attention

TOUCH:

merely pressing our sin against an object

Simplicity masks the fact that perception is an extremely sophisticated activity of the
brain. Perception calls upon stores of memory data. It requires subtle classification,
comparisons, and myriad decisions before any of the data in our senses becomes our
conscious awareness of what is out there.
Sensation and perception are the first of many complex processes that occure when
an individual initiates behaviour. There is:

No clear line between perception and many behavioural activities

No perception gives direct knowledge of the outside world, rather such

knowledge is the end product of many processes

All perception of objects requires some guessing
Sensory stimulation provides the data for our hypothesis about the nature of the

external world
Hence, it is these hypothesis that form our perception of the world.

Spatial perception
Spatial perception involves a number of different facets:
1. Egocentric we have good sense of where our bodies are positioned relative of
other objects in the external environment
2. Object-relative localizations we can also perceive the distance between objects
within the environment
3. Comprehension whether an object is two-dimensional or three-dimensional