THE AIR AS PARAMETER FOR DESIGNING MAN’S SPACE

This present issue of the magazine SMC shows a Focus dedicated to the element AIR. The choice of such a complex subject is due firstly to the Editorial Committee’s desire of defining, beyond any doubt, how and how much the Nature’s aspects have the right to enter the decisional and application process of construction and transformation of habitat; in order to make concrete this right, the designers, the builders and the customers should be responsible of taking into account not only the geometrical, legal and social context in which they operate, but also the physical, the environmental and non-anthropical components, previously belonging to the place object of the transformation itself; this will lead to feel the duty of respecting the constituent elements of the world (earth, water, air and fire) and considering them as part of the pre-existing characters of the place as well as part of the design procedure. Nevertheless for the choice of this theme another motivation emerged; as it is known in fact, the air is not only a sole and empty container of our life space, but it also represents a means for the wind form and distribution, for the sound propagation, for gas-substances’ absorbency and transmission – developed as natural or anthropically induced phenomena – and, as a more important thing, for the diffusion of those volatile materials which could represent a benefit or, conversely, a damage for men’ and ecosystems’ health.
Starting from the scientific postulates regarding the relationship between the air and the environment, it can be reminded the well known phenomena, according to which the moving air, i.e. the wind, were due to the “…temperature and pressure difference of various air masses … wherever the air goes down towards the earth, a low pressure zone occurs, the winds flow from high to low pressure zones … there are local winds on small scale which affect weather conditions … the sea breeze .. the catabatic winds, the mountain breezes …”² […]