Rethinking Buildings for Human Resilience and Health-ing - A Conversation with Bilge Köbaş

In this eye-opening episode of Health-ing, hosts Ushma Issar and Thomas Plochg welcome Bilge Köbaş, a researcher and project lead at the Sense Lab and a PhD candidate in climate-responsive design at the Technical University of Munich. Bilge’s work explores how our built environments can be designed to promote both planetary sustainabilityand human well-being, challenging conventional notions of comfort and architecture.

Bilge shares her journey from architecture to research, inspired by her nomadic family background, where buildings were designed with purpose and adaptability in mind. She critiques modern architecture’s obsession with "man-made weather" and comfort, arguing that this approach has disconnected us from nature and weakened our physiological resilience. Her research focuses on thermal physiology and how exposure to natural environmental variability—rather than constant comfort—can enhance human health and adaptability.

The conversation dives into the Shift Initiative, a global network Bilge co-founded to revive vernacular architectural knowledge and adapt it for contemporary challenges. She discusses the importance of designing buildings that support human health—not just comfort—and how this requires a fundamental shift in architectural education, policy, and public mindset.