Here we go again! Bill Dunster is claiming that lightweight modern construction methods are 鈥済uaranteed to require electrically powered air-conditioning within a few decades鈥� (15 April, page 42).

Will he please get stuck into some physics to find out why the DDU lightweight steel buildings Buckminster Fuller developed during the early 1940s for US Airforce personnel operating in the Persian Gulf were cool inside (without air conditioning), when outside the temperature was 38掳C in the shade?

Or, if that example offends his technophobic sensibilities, why Indian teepees are cool in hot weather?

The future of construction 鈥� truly sustainable construction 鈥� lies with the application of energy and resource-efficient lightweight building technology, not crude heavy structures (look, for example, what they do to people in earthquakes and tsunamis).

John Prewer, John Prewer Associates

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