Press information
 | Mareike Krautheim / Ralf Pasel / Sven Pfeiffer/ Joachim Schultz-Granberg City and Wind. Climate as an Architectural Instrument 165 × 235 mm, 208 pages, 274 images Softcover ISBN 978-3-86922-310-0 (English) € 28,00 / CHF 38,20 May 2014. DOM publishers, Berlin |
Now available at DOM publishers:
Mareike Krautheim / Ralf Pasel / Sven Pfeiffer/ Joachim Schultz-Granberg
City and Wind: Climate as an Architectural Instrument
Understanding Wind as a Design Element
The principal function of architecture has always been to protect human beings from the weather. It provides shelter from rain, heat, or wind. At the same time, the climate has always determined the material, shape, and orientation of buildings, be they Alpine timber cottages or African clay dwellings. Have we lost this ability to use the climate as a basis for building? The authors of City and Wind: Climate as an Architectural Instrument certainly think so; and that is why Mareike Krautheim, Ralf Pasel, Sven Pfeiffer, and Joachim Schultz-Granberg chose a quotation from Buckminster Fuller as a motto for this seminal publication: “Don't fight forces, use them.”
City and Wind approaches the topic from various angles: Innovative research about the interaction between wind and cities assists architects and urban planners in understanding wind as a natural force and in integrating it into the planning process. However, the authors also discuss the social, cultural, and phenomenological aspects of wind, raising awareness of the soft factors related to this fundamental force in order to sharpen our sense of its physical significance for human beings and design. The book’s final section presents twenty-two path-breaking projects and concepts from all over the world. In the past fifteen years, the effects of climate change have emerged as an important architectural planning parameter. Yet for all the efforts that have been made to achieve energy efficiency and sustainability, the main focus has been on the development of more and more sophisticated technologies to protect human beings from negative environmental impacts. The knowledge and skills enabling people to use local climate conditions in a more proactive manner are gradually fading, the authors claim. To rediscover and tap these resources is the aim of this book.
Wind is a wide subject that so far is unfamiliar to most architects, designers, and urban planners. This book seeks to close the gap between climate research and architecture and design: after all, the natural sciences explain the world that design professionals seek to shape. In order to bring the two together, the book discusses climatology and environmental sciences from an architectural perspective. This must-read for architects, designers, project developers, and planners in administration and politics includes essays by Kees Christiaanse, Fritz Reusswig, Hans-Arno Jantzen, Peter Mensinga, Christophe Barlieb, and Otto Klemm.