Bioclimatic Architecture

Architecture has always involved the use of natural resources to serve human needs. There is a long and inventive tradition of making buildings that are sensitive to place and to climate. Since the Industrial Revolution, technological developments affecting the building sector, including electric lighting, central heating and air conditioning, have allowed buildings to become progressively more detached from their environments. Cheap fuels, new heating, cooling and lighting technologies and increased expectations of occupants have resulted in buildings that are designed and used with little regard to their location or their ambient environments. Many of these buildings manage to provide acceptable levels of thermal and visual comfort indoors, but at enormous and unsustainable cost to the environment and there is a growing body of evidence that the artificially maintained conditions within many of our modern buildings are not conducive to good health.