2008年，剑桥大学建筑系艾伦·肖特教授和卫生部房地产与设施处处长会面。

肖特教授回忆道：“我的任务是要设计出能自我调节温度的医院。”

“整体来说，建筑业一般对医院避之唯恐不及，因为医院建筑非常复杂，而且技术要求极高。创新很危险，因为人命关天。”

但现实是，人命已经岌岌可危。“很遗憾，随着炎热天气的频发，不管是在医院或在自家，身体欠佳的年迈和年幼患者死亡率也随之提高。”肖特表示。“气候变化最大的一个问题在于，医院这样的基础设施建设无法应对我们所经历的高温。如果没有预防性措施，高温导致的院内死亡悲剧只会与日俱增

Impact at a glance

It was 2008 and Alan Short, Professor of Architecture at the University of Cambridge was meeting with the Director of Estates and Facilities of the Department of Health.

“I’d been tasked with designing a hospital that could self-regulate its temperature,” recalls Short.

“On the whole, architecture practices tend to steer clear of hospitals as they’re thought to be incredibly complex and technically demanding. Innovation is dangerous because you’re risking people’s lives.”

But the reality was that lives were already at risk. “Sadly, mortality increases with hot weather both at home and in hospitals – the very elderly and very young patients with compromised health are particularly vulnerable,” says Short. “One of the biggest problems of climate change is infrastructure like hospitals haven’t been built to cope with the temperatures we are experiencing. This tragedy of in-hospital deaths from heat will only increase if preventative measures are not put in place.”

肖特说明：传统制冷空调的能耗大约是“供暖的三倍”，同时还会加剧气候变暖。他认为解答是“从根本上改变配置建筑的思维。”

肖特从学生时代就对环境建筑充满兴趣，并着手设计了几座自我调节的建筑，包括考文垂大学图书馆。“建筑完全通过自然方法通风、制冷。设计非常简单，但效果卓越。在温度调节方面表现特别成功。”

“卫生部的首席建筑师打电话来问我：‘你能不能盖一栋这样的医院？’我说：‘有何不可。’”

肖特完成了自我调节医院的草稿，并与拉夫堡大学、开放大学和剑桥工程设计中心的合作方一同为NHS大量的房地产进行评估，并为改善建筑应对气候变化的韧性、减少碳排放，以及提升舒适度提出建议。

该研究项目名为“为气候变化设计并交付强韧医院环境”，从2007至2019年持续了超过十年的时间，产出了一系列提升建筑夏季韧性的提案。

Conventional air conditioning which, explains Short, “eats about three times as much energy as heating,” perpetuates the very problem our warming world is up against. The answer he says is to “think about configuring buildings in a fundamentally different way.”

Short has been interested in environmental architecture since he was a student and went on to design a number of self-regulating buildings, including the University Library in Coventry. “The building was completely naturally ventilated and cooled. The design was very simple but worked a real treat. It was fantastically successful at temperature regulation.”

“The chief architect of the Department of Health phoned me up and asked: “Could you make a hospital like that?” I said, “I don’t see why not.””

Short drew up designs for a self-regulating hospital and went on to be appointed, along with collaborators at Loughborough University, the Open University and the Cambridge Engineering Design Centre (EDC), to assess the NHS’s vast estate and make recommendations to increase its resilience to the changing climate, reduce carbon emissions and improve comfort.

The research project was known as the Design and Delivery of Robust Hospital Environments in a Changing Climate (DeDeRHECC) and would span more than a decade – running from 2007 to 2019 – resulting in a set of proposals to boost resilience in hot summers.

“那时候的建筑到处都是宝，其设计对于如何使用最少的能源维持舒适度展现了深刻的理解。他们当时利用巧妙的建筑形态（例如材质和几何形状）让大量的空气流动，提供被动制冷。”

“我们就是厚颜无耻地借由他们的技术”，肖特说。

虽然肖特的设计灵感来自19、20世纪的建筑，但他的分析却是以21世纪的技术革命为基础。他和伦敦帝国理工学院合作，帝国理工将原本设计来评估洋流的软件重新调整，用来研究医院建筑中的空气流动。

肖特和同事们进行了两年的观察研究收集数据，以此为基础进行模拟，接着设计出一系列可在医院中进行改造的干预措施，以提升建筑自我调节的能力。这些措施专为卫生部所识别出的五类主要基础建筑定制设计。

其中包括窗户外的遮蔽装置，既容许适量的阳光进到室内，同时提供可由使用者控制的烟囱效应交叉通风，在必要时可以进行大量的空气流通。团队为五个主要房地产类别设计了适应方案，并对英格兰NHS的248间急症医院（相当于1240万平方米）进行评估。

这些建议为NHS EEF提供了重要信息，肖特后来也受邀重新撰写NHS主要的能源效率指南，即“卫生技术备忘录”（HTM 07-02），为所有NHS的房地产与设施项目提供必要的参考标准。