Saturday, 9 September 2017
CIBSE Journal profile of Alan Short
CIBSE Journal September 2017 features Prof. C.Alan Short, "The History Man", see: http://portfolio.cpl.co.uk/CIBSE/201709/50/
Terrapin Bright Green feature
Terrapin Bright Green features 'The Recovery of Natural Environments in Architecture' Taylor and Francis, on their blog. Read Bill Browning's thoughtful comments at: https://www.terrapinbrightgreen.com/blog/2017/08/natural-ventilation-learning-past/
"This is an important book to read"
"This is an important book to read"
Straits Times Singapore
The Straits Times features Prof C. Alan Short and his new book, 'The Recovery of Natural Environments in Architecture', Taylor and Francis, Routledge, see:http://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/home-design/cool-to-be-green
Tuesday, 22 August 2017
AHRC Grant 'Exising Infection in the Surgical Environment' [ExISE]
Prof. Alan Short leads Cambridge/Kings College London team of researchers to win the Arts and Humanities Research Council AHRC Antimicrobial Resistance AMR Call with the project 'Exising Infection in the Surgical Environment' [ExISE]. He writes:
ExISE addresses the AHRC
Antimicrobial Resistance Call, 'Creative, Collaborative and Disruptive
Innovation, Experiments and Design in Indoor/Built Environments'. Its
overarching Aim is
to eliminate airborne acquired Surgical Site Infections (SSI) in operating theatres
OTs, traditionally countered with antibiotics. Our microbiologist colleagues emphasise
that any antibiotic use,
suboptimal or optimal, creates AMR and so avoidance of antibiotic use, in this
case post-operative, is paramount. ExISE proposes to achieve
this aim through the evidence-based reinvention of the actual physical
environment in which surgery is practised, the Operating Theatre OT.
Eliminating airborne SSI will reduce the number of infections and the reactive
use of antibiotoics in recovery and recuperation and in some cases repeat
surgery and renewed risk. Airborne
transmission of infection has long been feared, the post war custom and
practice position on its mechanisms has dominated OT design. SSI is not
eliminated in contemporary OTs. The position is not wholly substantiated. Surgeons
do not question OT design. Is there another way?
ExISE will search for alternative approaches: its
historians of science, art and architecture will research a history of
Operating Theatre design, of making 'safe', appropriate environments for
surgery within their designers' and patrons' theories and beliefs over some 150
years. The search will extend to exhuming still and moving images of surgery in
action within its set environments. The Royal College of Surgeons believes this
is an as yet unwritten history. The team will be searching for accompanying evidence
for environmental intent to enable meaningful reconstructions of their theatres
and environments against the original criteria for success. What did they think
a healthy environment with healthy air looked like? ExISE scientists will assemble laboratory models and
environments from the historical reconstructions of OTs alongside a
contemporary 'Ultraclean' OT, the familiar 'cooker hood' issuing truly
prodigious flows of cool air through the OT over all the occupants and
contents, up to 40 air changes/hr, making a bizarre and not wholly welcome
working environment for surgical teams. In parallel, Exise will achieve greater
understanding of of the physical and psychological experience of being
in/working in a contemporary OT for surgical teams and support staff by
visiting teams and interviewing them in situ and at the Royal College. We hope
to translate these insights into a meaningful critique from which design and
redesign leads can be drawn, leading to a radical step change in fundamental
approaches to the design of OTs. Approaches which appeal to our stakeholders
and partners will be interrogated and tested physically with both analogue and
theoretical models to enable wide dissemination of research outputs with real
confidence and thence make significant impacts on the aspirations for and
expectations of environments for surgery. Pursuing the international success of
our earlier Robust Hospitals project film, we will make a 4-5minute animation
out of our drawn reconstructions of OTs, our ideas for redesigning the OT
superimposing the fluid flow modelling and calculated environmental
performance. Our partners will post the film for their constituencies as will
Cambridge University on its streaming media site and YouTube
Much detailed and painstaking work will be required
subsequently to implement such radically new OTs in practice but ExISE should
achieve the 'great leap forward' that breaks more than 60 years of standard
practice.
Sunday, 5 March 2017
Cambridge University press release on Alan Short's new book
Cambridge University Press Release on Alan Short's new book 'The Recovery of Natural Environments in Architecture' at:
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/back-to-the-future-of-skyscraper-design
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/back-to-the-future-of-skyscraper-design
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