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Our starting point is the observation that every building that we build or renovate is located somewhere, set within a certain climate. All these climates present positive and negative aspects. It is only humid tropical lowland climates that have exclusively negative aspects. The positive aspects are sometimes only at night, or simply because we are at a certain altitude and this enables us to act to guarantee the comfort of the occupants.

For us, from the design phase to the realization phase, the architectural act has two goals. The first is the search for the best match between the habitat – the building, the climate in which the building is located – and the occupant. The occupant is particularly important, because it is them who bring forward the comfort requirements. The four comfort requirements related to energy consumption are winter comfort, summer comfort, breathing comfort and visual comfort. In Belgium’s housing facilities, there is no difficulty in the summer to avoid the use of air conditioning, because buildings can be properly ventilated and offer adequate visual comfort during the day. However, in some cases, there is no way to meet these comfort requirements, and therefore we have to use additional elements, often mechanical ones. This leads us to the second goal: the search for the best possible match between the habitat, the additional facilities and the occupant.