Post-war advertisement for air conditioning by Carrier
Credit: Advertising Archive
Answers to the problem of crippling electricity use by skyscrapers and large public buildings could be 'exhumed' from ingenious but forgotten architectural designs of the 19th and early 20th century - according to a world authority on climate and building design. The air conditioning industry has persuaded us that you can't naturally ventilate buildings any more. Alan Short Newly-published, The Recovery of Natural Environments in Architecture by Professor Alan Short is the culmination of 30 years' research and award-winning green building design by Short and colleagues in Architecture, Engineering, Applied Maths and Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge. 'The crisis in building design is already here,' said Short. 'Policy makers think you can solve energy and building problems with gadgets. You can't. As global temperatures continue to rise, we are going to continue to squander more and more energy on keeping our buildings mechanically cool until we have run out of capacity.' Short is calling for a sweeping reinvention of how skyscrapers and major public architecture are designed - to end the reliance on sealed buildings which exist solely via the 'life support' system of vast air conditioning units.
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