IMPULSE-Focus III with Daniel A. Barber
IMPULSE-Focus with Daniel A. Barber: November 17-18, 2026
With a public lecture, Prof. Dr. Daniel A. Barber will contribute to the IMPULSE-Focus Event Series. The lecture is aimed at a broad audience and invites open discussion. M.A./M.Sc. students and doctoral candidates are additionally invited to take part in a transdisciplinary exploration through a workshop spanning two half-day sessions, held at Uni Bonn’s new IMPULSE – House for Intellectual Innovation and Creativity. Building on the public lecture, the workshop brings together Prof. Dr. Daniel A. Barber and colleagues from Bonn to explore, together with the participants, questions of imagination and human-environment relations at the intersection of architecture, archeology, anthropology, a.o.. Through inputs from different disciplines and experimental working formats, participants will jointly investigate connections between human imagination and the human existence.
Event Overview
Lecture: “How to Become Uncomfortable: Life Indoors after Carbon Dependence” by Prof. Dr. Daniel A. Barber
HOW TO BECOME UNCOMFORTABLE will turn the spotlight of climate action to one of its most overlooked and undervalued site: our buildings and how we inhabit them. For all of us, confronting climate change will mean finding new thresholds for comfort in our homes, our offices, our schools, that is, everywhere ‘indoors’. This means changing our thermal practices: how we use our spaces and bodies with respect to heating and cooling – from clothing to curtains, to seasonal habits and daily patterns. What are the skills and tools needed to better adjust, to reduce energy demand? And how can architects and designers change our buildings themselves to help us improve our thermal practices?
November 17, 2026: 6 pm (s.t.) to 7.30 pm
Mathematikzentrum, Endenicher Allee 60, Lipschitzsaal (1.016)
Open to the public – no registration required
Transdisciplinary Workshop (for PhD candidates & M.A./M.Sc. students): “Imagining Otherwise: Sustainability and Human–Environment Relations”
Nov 17 (12pm to 4pm) & Nov 18 (9am to 12 pm)
IMPULSE – House for Intellectual Innovation and Creativity,
Adenauerallee 131
Registration required
Registration deadline: November 9
Registration via: maria.ullrich@uni-bonn.de
Our Guest
Daniel A. Barber
Daniel A. Barber is Professor of Architecture at the Technical University of Eindhoven. He focuses on how architects engaged climate over the last century, and on how historical knowledge of architecture, climate, and energy can impact the ways that we design, build, and live in houses today. His most recent book is Modern Architecture and Climate: Design before Air Conditioning (Princeton University Press, 2020), which followed A House in the Sun: Modern Architecture and Solar Energy in the Cold War (Oxford 2016); his article After Comfort (Log 2019) has been translated into five languages. He is the co-editor of the ongoing series After Comfort: A User's Guide and Accumulation, both on the e-flux architecture online platform.
Barber has held fellowships at Harvard University, Princeton University, and through the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; in 2022 he was the inaugural Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies at Universiteit Heidelberg. He was recently Head of School Architecture at the University of Technology Sydney; he has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, Oberlin College, Auckland University, and has lectured at design schools and museums globally.
