Breathing Room: Calculating an Architecture of Air

Abstract

How do the findings of science—the precise mathematical measurements and calculations of phenomena that reveal the deep truths of the natural world—get translated into real life, into real practices, and, for the purposes of this paper, into architectural theory and practice? The answer, far from straightforward now in an era of rapid change, was equally difficult at a time when architects were concerned about tradition as much as innovation. By correlating pneumatic research in the 1700s to architectural designs specifically intended to promote a healthier internal air, this paper tries to trace how scientific findings became practical knowledge. The pneumatic research sought to quantify internal volumetric requirements and to outline ideal patterns of air movement in the creation of healthy spaces. Its practical application, however, posed a particular challenge for architects, who typically paid little attention to room occupancy and air flow. How architects dealt with (or ignored) this challenge illuminates the larger historical issue of how innovation is disseminated from initial laboratory-based mathematical findings to later empirically-processed practical changes. This work focuses on prison and hospital design. Those building types were the subject of intense discussion and experimentation, particularly over their air quality. They have, moreover, received considerable historical scrutiny.