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Air conditioning as we know it, providing thermal comfort by mechanical methods, first appeared in buildings about a hundred years ago. The ability to control temperature, humidity and air purity made urban development possible in the most inhospitable of locations. Together with electric lighting, air conditioning also eliminated restrictions on plan form and fenestration that architects had been constrained to work under since antiquity. But how did architects and engineers respond to these opportunities? What effect did this have on buildings? And, were the occupants any more comfortable?
These questions will be addressed in two articles reviewing the evolution of modern office building design and the impact of air conditioning. In this first article, the focus is on the period from the middle of the 19th century, when offices first emerged as a distinct category of building, to the advent of air conditioning in the 1930s. The design of early examples is reviewed, as well as the way architects attempted to provide cool comfort before air conditioning. Also addressed is the impact of air conditioning in terms of form and fenestration on office building design. The second article reviews the developments from the start of the post-World War II boom in air conditioning to the current state of the art.
Development of the Office Building
The description "fully air conditioned" is almost synonymous with large prestigious buildings, particularly commercial offices. However, with few exceptions such buildings did not exist much before the middle of the 19th century. Pevsner, in his History of Building Types1 awards the title of the first office building to the Uffizi (Uff cio is Italian for office). It was built in the center of the old city of Florence between 156s81 and designed for the Medici duke, Cosimo I, to provide government offices for the new State of Tuscany. It appears the architect, Vasari, encountered similar difficulties as his counterparts today.
It was two centuries before government offices on a similar scale were built. This was the development of a series of buildings in the Whitehall area of London to house the administration for the expanding British Empire. Soon after, offices were built speculatively for the first time to be leased as suites.1 During the second half of the 19th century,...