connecting minds sustainable technology

Catching the wind and cooling the house

The phrase “sustainable technology” is an offshoot of “sustainable design”, which was first used by the Brundtland Commission set up by the UN in 1983 to address concerns about the impact of development on the environment.

However, whilst the term “sustainable design” dates from the late twentieth century, evidence of this kind of design practice, in which the environment is both utilised and respected in equal measure, can be traced back some 2,000 years.

A classic example of ancient sustainable technology at work is the Persian construction known as the “windcatcher”.

The “windcatcher” is an entirely natural kind of air-conditioning system that long pre-dates the sophisticated, power hungry systems in the urban office blocks of today. The windcatcher is rather like a chimney. Yet unlike a chimney it has an open vent on the side of a building (as opposed to the top), and the opening vent directly faces the prevailing wind.

The wind is then sucked down through the “catcher” and distributed up and around the house having a fanning, therefore cooling effect. Finally the wind is pulled back up and out again through another chimney opposite the “catching” side.

In the case of regions where little or no wind is commonplace there’s a variant of the windcatcher known as the “solar chimney”, whereby solar energy creates an “updraft” which pulls hot air upwards and out of the building.

These relatively simple but highly ingenious design marvels confirm that sustainable design has been around for a long time; modern organisations now need to bring this sort of sustainable work into the era of computers and technology.