Heating and Cooling Glass explores the potential for the migration of the central HVAC system into a decentralized modular surface.

The double glazed Heating and Cooling Glass unit is used opportunistically as the site of maximum difference in temperature. Mediating incoming and outgoing air at the envelope takes advantage of the building’s skin as the interface between two different climatic zones. That difference is harnessed— through a Peltier device inserted in the glazing unit—to generate heating and cooling locally, as needed by the user, or as necessitated by weather conditions. By distributing the previously centralized HVAC system into the glazing system, glass becomes not only a visual transmitter of the outside but also a haptic transmitter. In a tactile way, it fulfills the quest of modernism to achieve continuity between inside and outside.