“Danshin (warming the body)” is a research project on the relationship to thermal comfort in Japan. Japanese houses are rarely fitted with central heating. Often porous and poorly insulated, they are populated with objects for warming the body — such as the kotatsu, a cross between a quilt and a low table fitted with a small electric heater, around which people gather for dinner. Everyday practices such as the sentō, the public baths where one can sink into pools of scalding water, allow the body to store up heat for the evening. Using a thermal camera, the project documents the objects and practices that are sources of thermal comfort in Japan. It questions the status of architecture as an airtight envelope containing uniformly heated air.

The photographic prints from this project, made in 2021, were shown in the exhibition Visible Invisible – L’invention de nouveaux terroirs par une approche matérielle et énergétique des milieux, at the Biennale d’Architecture et de Paysage, from May to July 2022.