Abstract and Bibliography

Abstract
When man created the first structure, he designed it to relate to nature. Man has since moved farther away from nature as he pursued his own needs and ideas. This has in recent years produced buildings which have become rectilinear masses causing architecture to become distant from and even contradicting nature. This can cause the building to perform poorly as the natural environment changes. Buildings like these ignore natures thermal efficiency and consume natural fuels in mass quantities to create a comfortable atmosphere for the inhabitants.
To change the way buildings function within the environment, one can look to nature. Nature produces sustainability throughout the world. It heats and cools environments without consuming mass amounts of energy. Unlike some buildings today, nature is full of curvilinear structures which work together allowing optimum shapes and forms to be developed that are more efficient, economic, and more appropriate to local climate and environmental conditions. For example, nature demonstrates that “wind flow” also responds best with curved aerodynamic forms (which have been adopted in modern cars and planes) that reduce drag. The sun also moves in a semicircular path across the sky and yet most buildings do not formally respond to this movement. By adapting buildings to nature, it may one day be possible to create a fully sustainable structure without the use of energy.
With today’s technology, it is becoming easier to sustain the interior climate of a building with the use of computers. These hybrid systems are receiving more attentions as society move into the future. One problem is with the use of technology, building conform more to the needs of man and less with nature. More primitive, but very effective techniques are the use of nature elements in the buildings. These heat and cool the internal areas without the use of energy. They just work with nature to produce thermal sustainability.


Bibliography

1. Hagan, Susannah “Taking Shape” Architectural Press, Maryland 2001
2. Hawkes, Dean and Foster, Wayne “Energy Efficient Buildings Architecture, Engineering and Environment.” W.W. Norton and Company inc., New York 2002
3. Hyde, Richard “Climate Responsive Design” E and FN Spon, New York 2000.
4. Pearson, David “New Organic Architecture: The Breaking Wave” University of California Press, London 2001.
5. Porteous, Colin “The New eco-Architecture: Alternatives from the Modern Movement” Spon Press, New York 2002.
6. Steele, James “Ecological Architecture: A Critical History” Thame and Hudson Ltd, London 2005.