br Introduction The study of the interaction

Introduction The study of the interaction of inhabitants with their built environments puts into question both the tangible ARCA and the immaterial phenomena in architecture – defined by several authors such as architectural atmospheres (Böhme, 2013; Ingold, 2000; Thibaud, 2014). Looking at thermal phenomena, this approach intertwines architectural design, constructive techniques, environmental strategies, thermodynamics of indoor spaces and inhabitants׳ sensory perception. A number of quantitative research methods deal with each one of the various fields involved, for instance: environmental design in architecture; monitoring and simulation of the building thermal parameters; thermal comfort models; post-occupancy evaluation. Qualitative methods have also dealt with thermal comfort from an adaptive point of view (Healey and Webster-Mannison, 2012; Nicol et al., 2012), which is more inclusive with psychological reactions than physiological comfort models. Yet few contributions situate thermal comfort as a cultural practice, which is historically, technically and socially conditioned (Shove et al., 2008; Wilhite, 2009). Whether this approach can be useful for new buildings, it reveals lacks if we focus on the existing stock of buildings and especially in those protected as heritage. The increasing awareness of the twentieth-century architectural heritage in Europe nowadays faces us to a paradox: buildings are too recent to be socially understood as monuments; yet their experimental character (design, techniques, way of life) makes it difficult to renovate them without dramatic changes. On the one hand, several authors have explained how modernist architecture was strongly influenced by the emergence of thermal comfort research and new thermal technologies; therefore, they conditioned inhabitants and designers׳ sensory perception of thermal notions (i.e., warmth, cool, comfortable, stimulating) and thermal atmospheres in architecture (Ackermann, 2002; Chang and Winter, 2015; Marino, 2014). On the other hand, the social perception of thermal comfort, architectural atmospheres and climate have totally changed since the early twentieth-century (Chappells and Shove, 2004); hence some authors conclude that Modern Architecture is nowadays in a point of functional and environmental obsolescence (Calduch, 2009; Chesneau, 2005), which represents a potential risk in terms of heritage. Our aim is not to provide exhaustive citation of all debates on such a controversial topic, which authors such as Choay (2009) or Graf (2014) have already explained. The current article aims to develop a fair and balanced understanding of the approach of Modernist architecture to climate, indoor atmospheres and inhabitants׳ thermal comfort. To do so, we chose to enrich the quantitative approach of environmental assessment methods with the qualitative angle of the history of sensory (Howes, 2013) and the history of architecture. The goal is to understand the environmental performance of architecture for dealing nowadays with thermal comfort issues while respecting its cultural and historical values. Two modernist houses have been selected as case studies for the article: the Villa Curutchet of the master Le Corbusier (1887–1965) and the Villa Chupin of his disciple André Wogenscky (1916–2006).
Research method
Results and discussion
Conclusions From a conceptual point of view, the research tries to avoid the historical anachronism (Delacroix et al., 2010) of superimposing our current culture of environmental awareness to an architecture that was not designed under such paradigm. According to a number of authors (Chang and Winter, 2015; Heschong, 1979; Rybczynski, 1989), the understanding of thermal issues in modernism must no be assessed from the current point of view of energy efficiency or sustainability. As we have explained (Requena-Ruiz and Siret, 2015), comfort and temperature in modernist architecture must be understood within the technical, cultural and sensory framework of its period; therefore, the results of this research cannot be seen through the lens of the current standards. However, we have shown how we could plot several links between the architecture of nowadays and the modern period around the notions such as: climate, shape, sunlight, natural ventilation, indoor atmospheres and thermal comfort. These topics could be the base of a more subtle intervention on the twentieth-century architectural heritage, while preserving its historical values.