Yeah and obviously it was impossible to put solar on the roof to power the AC because of their vanity roof design. So worse indoor air quality, and more heat and humidity. What a triumph of design!
Every time I have been in one of these "naturally ventilated" facilities designed to "not need AC" due to "passive cooling", they've been uncomfortably hot.
It just feels like industrial scale gas-lighting, and no one in charge can admit it doesn't work afterwards because too much was spent on it.
Is stacking solar on the roof and AC's inside really so uneconomical?
I'm convinced there's forces out there who are trying to make these projects deliberately not work so that we can all collectively discredit the idea.
Naturally ventilated airports would probably have issues with fumes. Might not be a great idea.
If I believe correctly the Dyson headquarters was designed to be fairly efficient as well.
My father in laws house was intentionally designed to be naturally ventilated, thermal mass concrete slab in the middle, etc. And it's comfortably cool even on 40 degree days.
> Naturally ventilated airports would probably have issues with fumes.
I'm confused. Do you mean from the food places? Those need proper extraction anyway. Or the cars/planes? Then mechanically ventilated airports take the air basically from outside anyway.
Depends on whether an ERV/HRV or other fresh air intake system is involved, I guess. In a space like an airport with so many people, you do have to cycle in fresh air somehow, it can’t just be a sealed space.
It doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. Too many buildings are build with complete neglect of the environment, with huge swathes of glass facing the sun. Then we have huge chillers try to compete and bring down the temperature. A little consideration goes a long way.
My mind goes to the “stickiness” and dampness of higher humidity days.
You can blow the warm air around all you want, but it’s inevitable there will be cooler less-porous surfaces that will condense warming mid-morning air, leaving puddles and wet spots.
Maybe this is a regional design where folks are used to this.
I had an office in one of these buildings. I agree it’s gaslighting. In this specific instance the solution was to block most of the window and work in the dark. Every office was a concrete cave with inadequate lighting.
The upside was that the design didn’t allow it to go open plan.
As someone who grew up with AC, I was one time in Brazil and got stuck in a place without AC. Needless to say the first few nights was hell. I just couldn't follow asleep. However after few days, my body just adjust to the local temperature, and really enjoyed it. In fact, going into mall with AC just feels too cold for me then. Of course there is a limit to what our body can endure, but there is something to be said about exposing and adapting our body to the natural elements instead of just adjusting the environment to make what is comfortable to our body.
There's certainly a level of acclimation but if it were truly as enjoyable people wouldn't bother with cooling/heating buildings except in the most hostile environments.
I live in a place with very little need for heating and air conditioning. If I don't do anything, indoor temperatures vary between 17°C and 27°C around the year. I've noticed that I prefer 24–25°C during the day in the summer and 21–22°C in the winter, and a bit less when I'm sleeping.
When I travel around the US, most places are too cold for my taste. Conference rooms are the worst, as I can't adjust the temperature myself and I often spend hours in them without much physical activity. I guess many Americans don't acclimatize to warmer temperatures, because their summers are uncomfortably hot.
And when I return from long hikes high up in the mountains, even that 17°C feels too hot for sleeping for a few days.
> I guess many Americans don't acclimatize to warmer temperatures, because their summers are uncomfortably hot.
Yeah. It's very weird/funny hearing how 100 F is almost death to them, when it's really not that bad. Most people where I'm from are practicing sports at 100 F.
This is so humidity dependent though, so it's probably more useful to speak in terms of the heat index.
I didn't mind 100F too much when I lived in Salt Lake; it was hot but that's what drinking lots of water was for. In Pittsburgh, 93F and higher make me want to curl into a ball and hug an air conditioner. In the 90s the heat index reaches as high as 110 here. Ick.
It is also the question of efficiency and productivity in the most generic sense. You've got only one life, and there is no point in spending it uncomfortably sweating while say loosing your focus given that AC is really cheap, whether it is energy required or the hardware itself.
That’s kind of the point. It’s not uncomfortable to live life in those temperatures if you’re acclimatized. Maybe something you bring up in small talk (“what about this heat?”) but never something that’ll change how you live.
Plus indoor spaces never get that hot due to shade and passive cooling. A little breeze and 90 F is just fine.
It would be interesting to have more details about the facilities where you stayed, especially before industrial scale accusations. It would improve the conversation.
>“Our objective is to maintain an indoor air temperature identical to the outdoor temperature while generating an airflow of 1 metre per second to reduce the perceived temperature for passengers.”
Funny seeing an article about Reunion island on HN.
I’m very familiar with this airport, and from my perspective the engineers behind the project did a very good job designing a building that can take best advantage of its location. See, the airport is located alongside the coast, and the sea breeze there can be pretty powerful.
Note that this is a new building (dedicated to arrivals), and is adjacent to the original building, which is still in use for departures.
The old building is also mostly passively cooled, and the difference in perceived temperature between the two is striking. The old terminal behaves more like a concrete bunker and can get very stuffy.
In contrast, this new arrival hall feels a bit like you’re on the deck of a ship at sea.
I have plenty of other issues about other elements of the new building, but that part works pretty well!
> “That is to say that if you reduce air conditioning throughout your life … when you get to 30 degrees in the office, you won’t be hot. In La Réunion, people are used to 30 degrees.”
Your mileage may vary. I live without air conditioning, but when it’s 30, I’m pretty tempted to defect. But I also tend to run hot.
It really depends on the humidity. 30 degrees in my dry hometown in central Spain is tolerable, 30 degrees with 90% humidity here in Japan where I live now is pure pain.
30C here in New Mexico outside is pretty tolerable (super low humidity, 6000'/3000m altitude). 30C in my office when I'm trying to think about anonymous closures is over the line.
> Ceiling fans with a 7.5-metre (24.6ft) diameter help to circulate the air. In the 30C (86F) humid heat of Réunion’s wet summers, which last from around November to April, the resulting breeze reduces the perceived temperature by four to five degrees, to almost the same level usually set for air conditioning.
"Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics. Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early-morning hours or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This was key to public efficiency."
I'm reminded of the situation at Verizon in Switzerland ~12 years ago where they didn't have any central air conditioning in the building "for the environment." Swiss summers can be HOT. I've seen 40°C/104°F in my time there. This ended up with a bunch of engineers buying floorstanding AC units for their desks that blew cold air onto them and barfed the resultant differential + work heat out the rear vent. Truly insane.
During the energy crisis in the summer of 1979, President Jimmy Carter issued an emergency conservation plan that mandated air conditioning thermostats in public and commercial buildings be set no lower than 78 degrees Fahrenheit, which is not too far from 80.6 degrees.
The mandate remained in effect for about nineteen months until President Reagan rescinded it less than a month into his presidency.
comrade1234 | 23 hours ago
lostlogin | 23 hours ago
haunter | 21 hours ago
buildsjets | 20 hours ago
l1tany11 | 5 hours ago
plantain | 23 hours ago
It just feels like industrial scale gas-lighting, and no one in charge can admit it doesn't work afterwards because too much was spent on it.
Is stacking solar on the roof and AC's inside really so uneconomical?
drekipus | 23 hours ago
Naturally ventilated airports would probably have issues with fumes. Might not be a great idea.
If I believe correctly the Dyson headquarters was designed to be fairly efficient as well.
My father in laws house was intentionally designed to be naturally ventilated, thermal mass concrete slab in the middle, etc. And it's comfortably cool even on 40 degree days.
viraptor | 23 hours ago
I'm confused. Do you mean from the food places? Those need proper extraction anyway. Or the cars/planes? Then mechanically ventilated airports take the air basically from outside anyway.
rrr_oh_man | 20 hours ago
This is not how A/C works.
klardotsh | 19 hours ago
rrr_oh_man | 14 hours ago
viraptor | 15 hours ago
rrr_oh_man | 14 hours ago
daedrdev | 21 hours ago
lostlogin | 23 hours ago
throwaway198846 | 22 hours ago
xattt | 21 hours ago
You can blow the warm air around all you want, but it’s inevitable there will be cooler less-porous surfaces that will condense warming mid-morning air, leaving puddles and wet spots.
Maybe this is a regional design where folks are used to this.
teruakohatu | 20 hours ago
The upside was that the design didn’t allow it to go open plan.
polycancel | 20 hours ago
zamadatix | 19 hours ago
jltsiren | 19 hours ago
When I travel around the US, most places are too cold for my taste. Conference rooms are the worst, as I can't adjust the temperature myself and I often spend hours in them without much physical activity. I guess many Americans don't acclimatize to warmer temperatures, because their summers are uncomfortably hot.
And when I return from long hikes high up in the mountains, even that 17°C feels too hot for sleeping for a few days.
dlisboa | 18 hours ago
Yeah. It's very weird/funny hearing how 100 F is almost death to them, when it's really not that bad. Most people where I'm from are practicing sports at 100 F.
dgacmu | 18 hours ago
I didn't mind 100F too much when I lived in Salt Lake; it was hot but that's what drinking lots of water was for. In Pittsburgh, 93F and higher make me want to curl into a ball and hug an air conditioner. In the 90s the heat index reaches as high as 110 here. Ick.
throw-the-towel | an hour ago
trhway | 15 hours ago
dlisboa | 10 hours ago
Plus indoor spaces never get that hot due to shade and passive cooling. A little breeze and 90 F is just fine.
OptionOfT | 18 hours ago
mejutoco | 11 hours ago
fouc | 23 hours ago
so it's not "cooled" at all
lostlogin | 22 hours ago
excannuk | 22 hours ago
nitwit005 | 22 hours ago
Giant fans are rather different than "natural ventilation" mentioned in the headline.
viraptor | 7 hours ago
markdown | 22 hours ago
Big Ass Fans FTW!
<https://bigassfans.com/fans/?attr_Diameter=24+ft.>
cyberax | 21 hours ago
At some point they overused automatic translation for their website. So it was rendered in Russian as "fans of a big ass" ("fan" as in "football fan"): https://web.archive.org/web/20220324070109/https://bigassfan...
athrun | 21 hours ago
I’m very familiar with this airport, and from my perspective the engineers behind the project did a very good job designing a building that can take best advantage of its location. See, the airport is located alongside the coast, and the sea breeze there can be pretty powerful.
Note that this is a new building (dedicated to arrivals), and is adjacent to the original building, which is still in use for departures. The old building is also mostly passively cooled, and the difference in perceived temperature between the two is striking. The old terminal behaves more like a concrete bunker and can get very stuffy. In contrast, this new arrival hall feels a bit like you’re on the deck of a ship at sea.
I have plenty of other issues about other elements of the new building, but that part works pretty well!
hyperpape | 21 hours ago
Your mileage may vary. I live without air conditioning, but when it’s 30, I’m pretty tempted to defect. But I also tend to run hot.
pezezin | 20 hours ago
PaulDavisThe1st | 19 hours ago
pezezin | 17 hours ago
rayiner | 17 hours ago
Who sets their air conditioning to 82F?
Doing this in a tropical country is penny-wise and pound foolish. As Lee Kuan Yew said, you need air conditioning to be able to think in a tropical country: https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2024/09/air-conditioning-on...
"Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics. Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early-morning hours or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This was key to public efficiency."
theodric | 15 hours ago
Italy did! The minimum summer temperature was only 1.4°F less than that. Dunno if they've kept it up. Summer this year was brutal in Europe. https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/italians-sweat-for-ukrai...
I'm reminded of the situation at Verizon in Switzerland ~12 years ago where they didn't have any central air conditioning in the building "for the environment." Swiss summers can be HOT. I've seen 40°C/104°F in my time there. This ended up with a bunch of engineers buying floorstanding AC units for their desks that blew cold air onto them and barfed the resultant differential + work heat out the rear vent. Truly insane.
hollerith | 7 hours ago
The mandate remained in effect for about nineteen months until President Reagan rescinded it less than a month into his presidency.
raincom | 17 hours ago
seemaze | 17 hours ago
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychrometrics