Talk:Mahoney tables

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This should be Mahoney tables (not Mahony table), they are a set of tables by Carl Mahoney. (Sometimes written Karl Mahoney).

I did a bit of digging and the tables originally appeared in: CLIMATE AND HOUSE DESIGN - Otto Koenigsberger, Carl Mahoney and John Martin Evans, Vol. I of UN Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs, Design of Low Cost Housing Community. Published 1971; no ISBN as far as I can tell, and there's no listing of it on the UNESA website. Best ref I have for it is from OSTI - note OSTI get Koenigsberger's name wrong, this is a bit of a theme. The book appears to have been a softback manual intended for use teaching student architects, there was even a pouch in the cover with a protractor in it (!). The tables were a ready-reckoner.

John Martin Evans is sometimes listed as J. M. Evans, J. Martin Evans and Martin Evans. Former director of PLEA, works at Centro de Investigación Hábitat y Energía, Buenos Aires. He published a review article which may be useful and easier to get hold of: J.M. Evans, 30 years of the Mahoney’s Tables, in: S. Szokolay (Ed.), Proceedings of PLEA’99, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 1999. Note 30 years - these are the tables that appeared in the book in 1970 (sometimes listed as 1971).

Also from Mahoney's own bio Carl has an international reputation in the area of Passive and Low Energy Architecture (PLEA) and is well respected for his work on the Mahoney Tables for the United Nations, his pioneering work on the effects of combining thermal mass and insulation in building elements and the design of finite difference thermal simulation models for buildings. The Mahoney Tables are used in tertiary programs in countries throughout the world. He is currently writing a book outlining a holistic approach to the dynamic relationships of human, economic, technical and natural systems in world development, and is concerned to further the cause of sustainable development in as many ways as possible. 

Better still, Evans wrote a PhD thesis last year: entitled 'THE COMFORT TRIANGLES: A NEW TOOL FOR BIOCLIMATIC DESIGN'. Quoting from section 7.3, which talks about the Mahoney tables: The concept developed by Mahoney (1968) in Nigeria provided the basis of the Mahoney Tables, later developed by Koenigsberger, Mahoney and Evans (1970), published by the United Nations in English, French and Spanish, with large sections included in the widely distributed publication by Koenigsberger et al (1978). The Mahoney Tables (Evans, 1999; Evans, 2001) proposed a climate analysis sequence that starts with the basic and widely available monthly climatic data of temperature, humidity and rainfall, such as that found in HMSO (1958) and Pearce and Smith (1990), or data published by national meteorological services, for example SMN (1995). Today, the data for most major cities can be downloaded directly from the Internet (from sites such as http://www.wunderground.com/global/AG.html, 2006).

Unfortunately Evans' references don't match up with his text (and in some cases are missing), but the 1978 ref is: Koenigsberger et al., (1977) Viviendas y edificios en zonas cálidas y tropicales, Editorial Paraninfo, Barcelona ISBN 84-283-0885-3.

Now this just needs bashed into an article :) --Bazzargh (talk) 14:54, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Forgot one. The book that contained the crucial reference that led to everything else: Passive and Active Environmental Controls: Informing the Schematic Designing of Buildings, the Mahoney tables are visible in the preview on Google Books. --Bazzargh (talk) 15:11, 8 January 2008 (UTC)