Collective Comfort: Airing on Possibilities

The (Im)material Matters Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Professor Liz Gálvez, presents Collective Comfort: Airing on Possibilities, an innovative exhibition examining climate resilience in desert cities. The exhibition at the Center for Architecture + Design in San Francisco highlights design-research, full-scale prototypes, and student work that address the urgent need for alternative cooling solutions in regions facing extreme heat.

As global temperatures rise, Collective Comfort responds to climate challenges with sustainable design concepts that engage both community and environment. The featured works reimagine cooling centers as dynamic community spaces that move beyond air conditioning to foster collective well-being through enriched architectural programming and opportunistic material thinking. Highlighted research explores cooling strategies, material innovation, and community-centered designs developed by students at UC Berkeley’s Department of Architecture alongside collaborations with the University of Houston’s Urban Climate Adaptation Lab directed by Dalia Munenzon and expert input on building physics, wood construction and social infrastructure by Salmaan Craig (Associate Professor, UCLA), Paul Mayencourt (Assistant Professor, UC Berkeley) and Melissa Guardaro (Assistant Research Professor, Knowledge Exchange for Resilience, Arizona State University), respectively.

Key Installations

•  Prepared Mass: Stone, Clay & Thread—Utilizing traditional thermal mass and buoyancy ventilation techniques within contemporary framing construction, three full-scale prototypes demonstrate how ancient materials like clay, earth, and stone can be adapted to counter the urban heat island effect through passive cooling methods.
•  Comfort, Collectively—Envisions a future where cooling centers are reimagined through collective comfort as spaces that prioritize shared thermal pleasures and the joy of gathering as tools for community resilience. Here, comfort transcends austere metrics, embracing the richness of thermal relationships—where thermally diverse materials create dynamic interiors that respond to and engage the body.
•  A Building Code for Heat Resilience—This framework proposes new design guidelines for resilient hub buildings, integrating culturally sensitive programming with thermally massive materials and building physics principles tailored to desert climates.
•  An Urban Code for Heat Resilience—Expanding from the building scale to the urban environment, this collection proposes new design guidelines for shade equity and social infrastructure, integrating community-driven cooling solutions and policies that ensure accessible shaded spaces and heat relief resources for vulnerable communities.
•  Collective Comfort Architecture Studio—Graduate students at Berkeley Architecture were asked to create a series of “Comfort Artifacts” to develop new “Comfort Concepts” eventually developing their thermal ideas through the design of a building intended to embody and support Collective Comfort.