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The Windy City
Combat the heat islands and stagnant air with architecture | |
Skyscraper architecture with vertical ridges
were found to cause more wind in a city
because they channel air from higher
windy altitudes downward and future
buildings were changed to combat this. It
would have been better if humans had
decided to maximize the benefits of this.
By channeling
the cool air from the higher
altitudes big buildings could potentially
cool down more areas and even be set up
to circulate fresh air around a city.
The ridges would be more horizontal and
pronounced at high altitudes and slope to
vertical or just spiral around the building.
Other ideas would be to add water to the
ridges to allow for more evaporation and a
faster cooldown or use two close buildings
to channel air between them.
Air could even be channeled to other city
features that would clean the air as it
passed, like reflecting pools or dense
forest grown just for the purposes of the
city. Resulting in cities that would need
parks, lakes, fountains and reflecting
pools for more than just cosmetic reasons.
I think it should be a new field of science
http://www.nytimes....nviron-climate.html
[10clock, Jun 29 2005]
[link]
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I don't know, Logical thinking- Is that a move we really expect urban planners to make? |
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What about channeling this wind to produce power too? Clean wind mills could sit along these currents of air. It would be an environmentalist's dream (along with the cooling and cleaning aspects of course). |
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They could do both. The wind turbines
are placed on the tops of some of the
higher buildings where the altitude is
more windy. I'm sure the wind turbines
could be placed in the wind paths
atleast to keep up some city lights in
the park. |
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Perhaps the an architectural form that helps to quell the heat islands that all cities form. Theres your global warming. Large cities, thousands of miles of roads that never cool down during the warmer months. Phoenix, Tucson; the concrete stays above 90 all night long where out in the desert temps go to the mid 80's. Cooling the air would have the same effect as generating more power. Cooler air means AC systems have to do less work. Now if you could do both that would be cool. |
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