The ZERO Institute is delighted to welcome Sue Roaf to Oxford for a thought-provoking discussion of her new book, Adaptive Thermal Comfort: At the Extremes, in conversation with Dr Radhika Khosla. This is the third volume of the Adaptive Thermal Comfort series, in which Roaf and colleagues explore the “building revolution” needed to ensure that people can remain not only comfortable but thermally safe indoors in a heating future.
12.30pm – complimentary light lunch & networking
1-2pm – discussion
As climate change drives more frequent and intense weather trends and events, communities have been pushed by the regulatory system to being ever more reliant on mechanical air conditioning and ventilation systems that can be both energy intensive and chemically and thermally polluting to the climate and environment. The result is accelerating feedback loops whereby the overuse of cooling technology increases the need for the use of that technology. The move to building mechanisation has gone hand in hand with the global trend of decreasing the passive climatic performance of buildings, leading to “a generation of often thermally dangerous and increasingly un-resilient buildings”.
Researchers and students at any career stage with an interest in extreme heat resilience across academic disciplines and perspectives, from architecture, engineering and material science and engineering to environmental justice and behavioural policy fields, are warmly invited to share and explore Roaf’s insights.
About the speakers:
Sue Roaf: B.A. Hons, A.A. Dipl., PhD, FRIAS, HonDEng is Emeritus Professor of Architectural Engineering at Heriot Watt University, Honorary Professor at Deakin University, Melbourne and at the University of Queensland and has an Honorary Doctorate in Engineering at Southampton Solent University.
An award-winning author, architect, teacher and solar energy pioneer. She spent ten years in Iran and Iraq, on archaeological excavations, nomadic migrations, and researching desert technologies. Her 24 books include those on The Ice-houses of Britain, Ecohouse design, energy efficient buildings, adapting buildings and cities for climate change, sustainability indicators, adaptive and resilient thermal comfort, natural energy buildings and transforming markets in the built environment.
An ex-Oxford City Councillor, ex-member of the UK’s Architects Registration Board and ex-Director of AES Solar Energy Ltd. She is Director of Ecohouse Initiative Ltd., an advisor to the Resilient Design institute in New York and has chaired and (co-) organised many conferences including Passive Low Energy Architecture, The Initiative for Carbon Accounting, and various International Conferences on Comfort at the Extremes.
She led Scottish Government programme on Adaptation in the Built Environment from 2010 to 2016, and now leads the Comfort at the Extremes movement, working in Antarctica from 2019 to 2024 and now with researchers in marginalised communities in Australia on climate-safe design.
Chair: Radhika Khosla: Associate Professor at the Smith School for Enterprise and Environment (SSEE), Programme Leader at the ZERO Institute, School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE), and Research Director of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development (OICSD).
An urban climatologist by training, Dr. Khosla has led the development of research agendas and international knowledge networks on extreme heat, sustainable cooling transitions, urban energy demand and resilience, and climate change policy, with a focus on emerging economies.
She is a contributing author to the sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and lead author of the UNEP Emissions Gap Report (2020) and the UNEP Global Cooling Watch Report (2023 and 2025). She serves on the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office UK-India Advisory Board; on the Steering Committee of the Smart Surfaces Coalition; on boards of journals and book presses; and on a range of advisory roles within Oxford.
Any enquires can be sent to ZERO@eng.ox.ac.uk
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