Business Partners Overview
Next is a short explanation of every stakeholder with their area of interest and current products.
| www.velux.com | Company
Velux is specialized in windows and blinds. Their focus now lies on sustainable living. They look at a house from a holistic viewpoint with energy efficiency, healthy indoor climate and renewable energy as main points of interest. |
| Products
Their product range can be split in two, the windows and blinds. They are in the consumer and business to business market. Windows
Blinds
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| www.isover.com | Company
Isover is specialized in thermal and sound insulation. Their strategy is to design energy efficient constructions, to provide safe comfort for users and to help protect the environment. They are in the home and business to business market. Their interest is not only in new buildings but also in renovating old ones. |
Products
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| www.nilan.dk | Company
Nilan is specialized in Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems. Their focus lies on saving energy and move away from fossil fuels and still contribute to a comfortable indoor climate. They are interested mostly in the business two business markets. |
| Products
Their HVAC systems can be split up in two, domestic and industrial systems. Domestic These are active ventilation systems with an integrated heat pump to warm the building up during the winter and cool it down in the summer. Inside is also a filter that removes odours, particles and moisture. Exhaust air can heat up the hot water supply. Industrial Mechanical ventilation units that size from 1.000 up to 50.000 m3/h of air. |
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| www.windowmaster.com | Company
WindowMaster is specialized in controlled natural ventilation. Natural air improves the wellbeing of people indoor. Their solutions are based on the natural forces and therefore have a considerable lower energy usage than mechanical solutions. |
| Products
Their products are integrated automated natural ventilation. They range from sensors (rain and other outdoor sensors) to actuators (motors to adjust windows or blinds) and control panels or remotes. |
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| www.grontmij-carlbro.com | Company
Grontmij-Carl Bro are engineering and management consultants that make sure cities and countries develop in a sustainable way to improve the life of the individual as well as society as a whole. Their mission is to future-proof the quality of life. |
| Products
They give their advice whether it fits the guidelines on new and renovation of existing buildings. Comfort is not yet defined and therefore interesting to them. |
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| www.dtu.dk | Their interest lies mainly in making a rationale about how to quantify indoor comfort. This integrated scale should make comfort measurable. |
| www.sdu.dk | Their interest lies mainly in the soft values that play a role in the indoor climate. What do people appreciate and why when looking at the indoor climate. It is not only about the parameters, but also the people and their actions within the indoor environment. How to make new solutions fit people’s way of living? |
Home inspiration
Amongst the standard sites I check every day is the howstuffworks website. On this was an interesting atricle about 'wacky home inventions'. These should increase the indoor living comfort. Which I think is related to the project in a wider scope.
Most of them are just hilarious, but there is an idea behind them, probably 
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Pocock, Jennifer. "Top 10 Wacky Inventions for the Home." 29 July 2008. HowStuffWorks.com. 23 March 2010.
Comfort is…
When looking at the Indoor Climate Comfort we can derive lots of factors that influence the comfort of the people within the room.
Amongst them are:
- Temperature
- Humidity
- Draft
- Isolation
- CO2
- Heat radiation
- Amount of fresh air
- Sunlight
- Indoor lighting
- Sound
- Social (others in the room, hierarchy)
- Amount of energy used
- Activity in the room
- Time (day-night/month/season)
- UV-index
- Culture
- Mood
- Personal preference
Some of them are directly measureable and have a big contribution to the comfort. Others play a less prominent role but non the less are important. What are the most interesting ones to look at for provotyping?
Clustering
The indoor climate project is already going on since september 2008. For earlier etnographic studies the team created 6 comfort themes.
- Comfort is what people make
- Comfort is bringing feeling, observing and understanding in tune
- Comfort is about social relations
- Comfort is a political construct
- Indoor comfort connects to the outdoor
- Comfort means becoming healthy
Together with the business partners they had a brainstorm on each theme. Since the teamleader and I are new to the project it seemed a wise choice to let us help with clustering the ideas from the different brainstorm sessions to work towards innovation tracks that were interesting for the Universities as well as the business partners.
In the end we decided on 6 tracks that seemed interesting to think towards project proposals, the intention of tomorrow's meeting.
These are:
- Visualization & Feedback
- Understandable Control
- Community & Competition
- Habits & Activity
- Regulations & Responsibility
- Climate Awareness
Every theme had a board like can be seem on the picture.
