The recovery of natural environments in architecture : air, comfort and climate / C. Alan Short.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Short, C. Alan (Charles Alan), 1955- author.

Series:

BRI book series (Routledge building research and information)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Natural ventilation.

Buildings--Environmental engineering.

Physical Description:

xxvi, 377 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm.

Place of Publication:

Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.

Summary:

The argument for the recovery of natural environments in architecture challenges the modern practice of sealing up and mechanically cooling public scaled buildings in whichever climate and environment they are located. This book unravels the extremely complex history of understanding and perception of air, bad air, miasmas, airborne pathogens, beneficial thermal conditions, ideal climates and climate determinism. It uncovers inventive and entirely viable attempts to design large buildings, hospitals, theatres and academic buildings through the 19th and early 20th centuries, which use the configuration of the building itself and a shrewd understanding of the natural physics of airflow and fluid dynamics to make good, comfortable interior spaces. In exhuming these ideas and reinforcing them with contemporary scientific insight the book proposes a recovery of the lost art and science of making naturally conditioned buildings. Book jacket.

Contents:

Airs, fears, dangers

Climate and its annihilation

Temperate climates

Urban heat islands

Theatres

Hospitals

Mediterranean climates

Continental climates

Existing buildings

Delivering the 'recovery'.

Notes:

"Earthscan from Routledge".

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780415824408

0415824400

9781138651463

113865146X

OCLC:

952567241