Answers to the problem of excessive electricity use by skyscrapers and large public buildings can be found in ingenious but forgotten architectural designs of the 19th and early-20th centuries

解决摩天大楼和大型公共建筑过度用电问题的方法，可以在19世纪和20世纪初那些巧妙但被遗忘的建筑设计中找到。

A    The Recovery of Natural Environments in Architecture by Professor Alan Short is the culmination of 30 years of research and award-winning green building design by Short and colleagues in Architecture, Engineering, Applied Maths and Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge.

A   艾伦·肖特教授所著的《在建筑中恢复自然环境》是由他和他在剑桥大学建筑学、工程学、应用数学和地球科学领域的同事们花了30年取得的研究成果，也是荣获绿色建筑设计奖项的作品。

'The crisis in building design is already here,' said Short. 'Policy makers think you can solve energy and building problems with gadgets. You can't. As global temperatures continue to rise, we are going to continue to squander more and more energy on keeping our buildings mechanically cool until we have run out of capacity.'

“建筑设计的危机已经出现了。“肖特说，“决策者认为，可以用一些小玩意儿来解决能源和建筑问题。但其实并不能。随着全球气温持续上升，我们会继续耗费越来越多的能源在机械制冷上，使得建筑内部保持凉爽，直到我们的产能耗尽。

B    Short is calling for a sweeping reinvention of how skyscrapers and major public buildings are designed - to end the reliance on sealed buildings which exist solely via the 'life support' system of vast air conditioning units.

B    肖特呼吁对摩天大楼和大型公共建筑的设计方式进行彻底的改造，以结束对封闭式建筑的依赖，它们的存在仅仅是通过大型空调系统来维持的。

Instead, he shows it is entirely possible to accommodate natural ventilation and cooling in large buildings by looking into the past, before the widespread introduction of air conditioning systems, which were 'relentlessly and aggressively marketed' by their inventors.

另一方面，他表示在大型建筑中实现自然通风和降温完全是有可能的，只要能回到过去那个还没有大规模引人空调系统的时代，这些空调系统就是由其发明者大肆进行宣传推广的。

C    Short points out that to make most contemporary buildings habitable, they have to be sealed and air conditioned. The energy use and carbon emissions this generates is spectacular and largely unnecessary, Buildings in the West account for 40-50% of electricity usage, generating substantial carbon emissions, and the rest of the world is catching up at a frightening rate. Short regards glass, steel and air-conditioned skyscrapers as symbols of status, rather than practical ways of meeting our requirements.

C    肖特指出，要让大多数现代建筑适合居住，它们必须是密封的，并装有空调。由此产生的能源消耗和碳排放量是惊人的，而且在很大程度上是不必要的。西方的建筑占了用电量的40%-50%，产生了大量的碳排放，而世界上的其他地方正在以惊人的速度赶上来。肖特认为，配备玻璃、钢铁和空调的摩天大楼只是地位的象征，而不是以实际的方式来满足我们的要求。

D    Short's book highlights a developing and sophisticated art and science of ventilating buildings through the 19th and earlier- 20th centuries, including the design of ingeniously ventilated hospitals. Of particular interest were those built to the designs of John Shaw Billings, including the first Johns Hopkins Hospital in the US city of Baltimore (1873-1889).

D    肖特的著作重点阐述了19世纪和20世纪早期通风建筑的艺术与科学一直在发展和完善，其中包括对通风良好的医院的设计。特别引人注目的是约翰·肖·比林斯设计的建筑，包括美国巴尔的摩市的第一家约翰·霍普金斯医院(1873-1889)。

 'We spent three years digitally modelling Billings' final designs,' says Short.' We put pathogens[1] in the airstreams, modelled for someone with tuberculosis (TB) coughing in the wards and we found the ventilation systems in the room would have kept other patients safe from harm.

 “我们花了三年时间用数字化模型对比林斯进行了最终的设计。“肖特说，“我们将病原体放入气流中，模拟在病房中咳嗽的肺结核病患者，结果我们发现房间中的通风系统可以使其他患者免受传染。

E    'We discovered that 19th-century. hospital wards could generate up to 24 air changes an hour - that's similar to the performance of a modern-day, computer-controlled operating theatre. We believe you could build wards based on these principles now.

E    “我们发现，19世纪的医院病房每小时最多可以换气24次，这与现代由电脑控制的手术室可达到的效果类似。我们相信你现在可以根据这些原理来建造病房。

Single rooms are not appropriate for all patients. Communal wards appropriate for certain patients - older people with dementia. for example - would work just as well in. today's hospitals, at a fraction of the energy cost.'

单人间并不适合所有病人。对于某些患者(比如老年痴呆症患者)更适合的公共病房在如今的医院仍能发挥作用，并只耗费一小部分能源成本。

Professor Short contends the mindset and skill-sets behind these designs have been completely lost, lamenting the disappearance of expertly designed theatres, opera houses. and other buildings where up to half the volume of the building was given over to ensuring everyone got fresh air.

“肖特教授认为这些设计背后的理念和技艺已经完全丢失了，他对那些消失了的、经由专家精心设计建造的剧院、歌剧院和其他建筑感到惋惜，而这些建筑中多达一半的空间可以确保每个人都能呼吸到新鲜空气。

F    Much of the ingenuity present in 19h-century hospital and building design was driven by a panicked public clamouring for buildings that could protect against what was thought to be the lethal threat of miasmas - toxic air that spread disease. Miasmas were feared as the principal agents of disease and epidemics for centuries, and were used to explain the spread of infection from the Middle Ages right through to the cholera outbreaks in London and Paris during the 1850s, Foul air, rather than germs, was believed to be the man driver of 'hospital fever', leading to disease and frequent death. The prosperous steered clear of hospitals.

F    19世纪会出现那么多设计精巧的医院和建筑是源于惊慌失措的公众强烈要求建筑要能够防止她们免受瘴气的致命威胁，这是一种可以传播疾病的毒气。几个世纪以来，瘴气一直被认为是引发疾病和流行病的主要因素，瘴气还被认为是从中世纪到19世纪50年代伦敦和巴黎霍乱爆发期间的传染源病传播。污浊难闻的空气(而不是细菌)被认为是造成“医院热”的罪魁祸首，会导致疾病和大量死亡。而当时的有钱人都会避开医院。

While miasma theory has been long since disproved, Short has for the last 30 years advocated a return to some of the building design principles produced in its wake.

尽管气理论早已被推翻，但在过去的30年里，肖特一直提倡重拾它所产生的一些建筑设计原则。

G    Today, huge amounts of a building's space and construction cost are given over to air conditioning. 'But I have designed and built a series of buildings over the past three decades which have tried to reinvent some of these ideas and then measure what happens.

G    如今，大量的建筑空间和建筑成本都用在了空调设备上。“但在过去的几十年里，我设计和建造了一系列的建筑，试图再一次使用早期的设计原则，然后检验产生的结果。“

'To go forward into our new low-energy, low-carbon future, we would be well advised to look back at design before our high-energy, high-carbon present appeared. What is surprising is what a rich legacy we have abandoned.'

“为了走向我们新的低能源,低碳的未来，我们最好回顾一下高能、高碳产品出现之前的设计。令人惊讶的是我们竟丢弃了如此丰富的遗产。

H    Successful examples of Short's approach include the Queen's Building at De Montfort University in Leicester. Containing as many as 2,000 staff and students, the entire building is naturally ventilated, passively cooled and naturally lit, including the two largest auditoria, each seating more than 150 people. The award-winning building uses a fraction of the electricity of comparable buildings in the UK.

H    肖特用其设计理念造就了一批成功案例，其中包括位于莱斯特的德蒙福特大学的女王大厦。可容纳多达2000名教职员工和学生，整个建筑是自然通风、被动冷却和自然采光的，包括最大的两个礼堂，每个可容纳150多人。这座获奖建筑的用电量仅为英国同类建筑的一小部分。

Short contends that glass skyscrapers .in London and around the world will become a liability over the next 20 or 30 years if climate modelling predictions and energy price rises come to pass as expected.

肖特认为，如果气候模型预测和能源价格上涨如期而至，那么在未来二三十年，伦敦和世界各地的玻璃摩天大楼将为此负责。

I    He is convinced that sufficiently cooled skyscrapers using the natural environment can be produced in almost any climate. He and his team have worked on hybrid buildings in the harsh climates of Beijing and Chicago - built with natural ventilation assisted by back-up air conditioning - which, surprisingly perhaps, can be switched off more than half the time on milder days and during the spring and autumn.

I    他相信，几乎在任何气候条件下都可以使用利用自然环境有效冷却的摩天大楼。他和他的团队已经研究了位于北京和芝加哥的恶劣气候条件下的混合结构建筑--自然通风辅以备用空调设备--令惊讶的是，在天气温和的日子和春秋两季，一半以上的时间都可以不使用空调。

Short looks at how we might reimagine the cities, offices and homes of the future. Maybe it's time we changed our outlook.

肖特着眼于我们可以如何重新构想未来的城市、办公室和家庭。也许是时候改变我们的看法了。

[1]pathogens: miroorganisms that can cause disease

[1]病原体：能够引发疾病的微生物。