ABSTRACT
Overall, one cannot fail to be impressed by the elegance of all of the buildings described in Chapters 4–18. They represent a wide spectrum of building types, from various kinds of headquarters buildings and administrative centres, through a couple each of tertiary education and research facilities, to a speculative office/retail development, an exhibition hall and a library. They range in size from 2500 to ∼40000m2, and while most are less than five storeys in height, the others (Red Centre, Eastgate Centre, Menara UMNO) form a progression up to the 34-storey RWE Headquarters. The climatic zones covered by these buildings are reasonably extensive, from the cold temperate of continental Europe with wintertime outside design temperatures well below 0°C and an annual range of 35– 40°C, to the warm humid conditions of South East Asia with outside design temperatures in a comparatively narrow band around 28°C; with the moderately temperate conditions of the UK and Japan, and the benign temperate conditions of Sydney and Harare lying somewhere between. Phoenix and Ahmedabad, although quite different in some climatic respects, are predominantly hot and dry with summertime temperatures reaching over 40°C. While around one-half of the buildings are between latitudes 50° and 56°, the others are spread between there and the Equator—all but two are in the Northern Hemisphere. Both functionally and aesthetically, the systems of thermal environmental control used in all of these buildings, and those outlined inChapter 3, demonstrate the outstanding skills of the design teams involved in using the ambient conditions of the region and site to advantage.
