After Comfort

Abstract

The essay is devoted to a critical revision of comfort in the context of climatic and inequality. Modern architecture is by default focused on the production of comfort — we live in the era of comfortocene. At the same time, comfort remains a blind spot for architects’

reflection and practice and a default design imperative. However, it is not harmless. Comfort is always in short supply, its distribution is uneven and coincides with the distribution of capital, and the price is an increase in carbon emissions. In the conditions of ecological crisis, the internal climate of buildings should be correlated with the external, global climate. Architects should reconsider their activities and move on to designing for discomfort, that is, architecture with reduced comfort.