LinkedIn·Friday, 10 July 2026·10 Jul 2026

As Belgium moves through yet another hot spell in a month, occupants inside every building are feeling exactly what thermal comfort means -…

AIRSCAN

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As Belgium moves through yet another hot spell in a month, occupants inside every building are feeling exactly what thermal comfort means - which is a great time to talk about WELL's Thermal Comfort concept. WELL treats thermal comfort as a state of satisfaction with surrounding conditions, divided into six factors working together: air temperature, radiant temperature from sun and warm surfaces, humidity, air movement, how active a person is and what they're wearing. A room can sit at a steady air temperature and still leave people too warm or too cold once the other five come into play. Radiant heat shows how easily a thermostat misses this. Recently our WELL AP and PTA, Adyl Anvarov measured radiant heat at Brussels' Schuman roundabout, and found the load a body absorbs ran almost 12°C higher in the open than under the trees twenty metres away, well past the 6.6°C gap in air temperature alone. The WELL standard offers two routes to thermal comfort. The first predicts the percentage of people who would feel uncomfortable in a space, given its temperature, humidity, air movement and radiant heat, and requires the design to keep that percentage low. The second adjusts the target indoor temperature with the outdoor climate, since people acclimatise to the weather they're living in and settle at a warmer indoor temperature in summer than in winter. WELL lets a project follow either route. Beyond hitting those conditions once, the concept looks for the building to keep delivering them. It rewards dividing a space into thermal "zones" so different areas can run at their own settings, giving occupants some individual control over their own space, and managing radiant heating, cooling and humidity rather than air temperature alone. It also asks for continuous monitoring, so conditions are tracked over time instead of assumed. The standard goes to this length because thermal comfort affects concentration, sleep, productivity and, in unbearable weeks like this one, health. A building that reads comfortable on a thermostat can still work against the people inside it, and measuring across all six factors is how you find those conditions and put them right. Airscan supports WELL Certification delivery from both ends of AP consultancy and performance verification across Europe and Asia. Get in touch to learn how WELL improves occupant wellbeing and what that means for productivity, retention and asset value.