ABSTRACT
Fundamentals of environment As we have seen in the early parts of this book, around the middle of the eighteenth century a process began by which the nature of architecture was fundamentally transformed. Progressively the environmental functions of the form and construction of a building were supplemented by the addition of mechanical devices. By various means and in varying measures these brought supplies of heat, light, ventilation and cooling that could not normally be delivered by the unaided building. In the so-called developed world, this had, by the end of the twentieth century, wide consequences for the nature of buildings as physical artefacts, as social containers and as economic instruments. Whatever the purpose, location or scale of a building it would be assumed that it would be an ensemble of structures, materials, spaces and mechanical systems. These would operate in concert to allow year-round, 24-hour-a-day occupation and use.
