The Built and the Natural Environments: Reaching a State of Positive Coexistence

摘要

The Islamic world is a rich 'depository of knowledge' for traditional energy-conservation techniques that have evolved through a great lineage of trial and error. Mohammad al-Asad and Majd Musa of the Center for the Study of the Built Environment (CSBE) in Amman, Jordan, outline how architects are now beginning to harness their inherited expertise with the aid of modern technologies. We often underestimate the tremendous influence of the introduction of mechanical air-conditioning and heating systems on the evolution of architecture. Such systems have severed the relationship between the building and its natural climatic environment. Accordingly, both designers and clients have become less concerned about how their buildings relate to factors such as the movement of the sun, direction of the wind and changes in outside temperatures. Mechanical systems, which depend on the ready availability of relatively cheap (usually oil-based) enepgy, allow for full control of climatic conditions within a building and, therefore, a decision as to whether or not to sheath a building with a curtain-wall glass facade, for example, is unfortunately now most often based on factors unconnected with climatic issues. Obviously, such an approach is neither sustainable nor responsible.