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Laurence William Wylie's book "Village in the Vaucluse" has an interesting story on how the lifestyle of his family changed after they moved from an American home with central heating to a farm house in Provence: it brought his family together. Modern homes destroys families. 
He continues, describing how life changes with the seasons. For me it is very similar. I live in a house, but my family gathers in the warmest room in the winter, and the coolest room in the summer. The other rooms of our house has become storage areas for stuff we don't need.
Here's what I wrote last summer, on the same subject.
Many of the things we think of as "culture" are really local attempts to heat or cool the human body. It is only in the era of air conditioners and central heating that they comes across as quaint or old fashioned. Take the humble fan for example. An everyday item once.
Take the Deep South for example. Few things are more culturally “Southern” than the long wrap around porches, and on them, the swing couches that with a tiny motion fans and cools the entire body, making hot summers more bearable without using air conditioners.
Here's Flannery O'Connor in her home in Georgia, in a porch swing and a rocking chair—another porch favorite on hot days, and also doubling as a comfy place to rock a child asleep on a cold winter night, indoors.
In medieval Europe homes were rarely heated, but a kitchen fire was common, the whole family would gather in front of the hearth on cold evenings. Some hearths had inbuilt seating, which were revived in the early 20th century as cozy "inglenooks" (from a Scottish word).
Of course, in some cultures the stove doubled as furniture, as this German tile stove with good spots for sitting on, and around, or the Russian stove with a built in bed, or the Chinese kang bed with a built in stove.
In an age when most people spent most of their time outdoors, insulating or heating buildings wasn't desirable, far better to insulate the person. So four poster beds with heavy fabrics preserving body heat and preventing droughts were common in many cultures for centuries.
After the fall of Rome up to the late middle ages, Royal courts traveled a lot and often needed more insulation than their hosts could provide. Long court sessions became more comfortable and more royal official looking once the rooms had been hung with the royal tapestries.
The extremely attractive wood paneling we value so highly today was also once exclusive royal traveling gear: quick to hang up on walls, it made the lowest crofters cottage look regal in a matter of moments, and insulated droughty walls remarkably well.
Europeans had their tapestries and wall panels, but when it came to weaving carpets the Persians were unbeatable. Persian carpets remain an absolute staple in millions of comfortable rooms and hotels across the world, insulating cold, hard floors and walls on bleak winter days.
Thanks to the fact that hot air rises, Europeans figured out that furniture was an essential aspect of keeping off cold, droughty floors. This discovery in time led to some amazing developments in furniture culture, and the furniture you keep is still a way to signal identity.
In cultures where the hot summers were far worse than the cold winters, people wisely stay low in their rooms, letting the hot air pass over their heads. Furniture wasn't, and still is not, very important in cultures like the Japanese with soft tatami mats or cool wooden floors.
But Japanese homes get terribly cold during the winters, and so for many families the gathering around the kotatsu has almost become a domestic ritual: a low table with a heated center and covered in insulating fabrics. They even have them on trains and cinemas these days!
Here is a photo that shows the room my family ought to live in, but for reasons of modernity we do not. This is the ideal room the Japanese climate: an engawa that can be used to enjoy the sun on cold winter days, but closed off if necessary. The seasons dictating how we use it.
Thermal comfort is important. Not least in commercial buildings. Who has not nipped into a supermarket on a hot day just to cool off next to frozen goods section? Or in winter, ducking into stores in "faked shopping", to enjoy a bit of warmth before braving the cold again?
A 95 year old craftswoman, on making fans and staying cool in traditional architecture without air conditioners in the summer and keeping warm without heating in the winter. nippon.com/en/views/b0232…
