Systems and the future
Air conditioning
hospitalofficelaboratoryretaildata center
A set of equipment that controls a building’s temperature, humidity and fresh air supply. In the tropics its main task is to cool and dehumidify.
What it solves
It maintains comfort and health where natural ventilation is not enough, such as operating rooms, laboratories or rooms with a lot of internal heat or outside noise.
Today
First reduce the load with shade, insulation and natural ventilation. Then choose inverter equipment, correctly sized, with low climate-impact refrigerants.
Common mistake
Oversizing the equipment and sealing a building that could have been naturally ventilated.
Tomorrow
Equipment can be programmed to cool when there is surplus solar energy and to come on only after shade, breeze and fans. Surfaces that cool by radiating heat to the night sky open another path.
Fact Air conditioning and fans consume about a fifth of the electricity used by the world’s buildings.
Where it comes from
- 1Peoples of the Middle East Middle East, more than 3,700 years ago
They stored ice harvested in winter in ice houses to cool off in summer. - 2Tang dynasty China, year 747
Emperor Xuanzong ordered a Cool Hall built with water-powered ventilation wheels. - 3Modern industry Brooklyn, United States, 1902
The first electric system controlling both temperature and humidity was installed in a printing plant.
Masters
- Louis Kahn Richards Laboratories, Philadelphia, United States, 1960
He separated into their own towers the ducts, air intakes and equipment serving the laboratories. His idea of served and servant spaces teaches how to give climate control a place and a form from the design stage.
Appears in the routes
See also
Also in Systems and the future
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.