The multi-storey blocks which constitute the main type of building in Greek urban environments, have certain common characteristics. Those characteristics include the overall building dimensions and geometry, internal room dimensions, the materials used both in building construction and insulation, the size and the arrangement of the openings on the facades, the arrangement of the balconies, the position and dimension of the staircase etc.
Researches into natural ventilation characteristics of courtyard buildings have been carried out extensively in climates very different from tropical climate. Nevertheless, courtyards have been incorporated for centuries in traditional shop houses and also adopted in many modern commercial buildings in tropical countries such as Singapore. This paper discuses a study to investigate the natural ventilation characteristics of courtyard buildings in Singapore. Four typical courtyard buildings are examined.
This project has studied a selection of 16 typical museums for antiquities in five Mediterranean countries and was partly funded by the JOULE III of the European Commission DG XII. Through an elaborate analysis and complete refurbishment of the Archaeological Museum of Delphi, the programme has provided an example for an innovative museum design based on present-day know-how.
This paper briefly outlines the development of a design tool for ascertaining thermal comfort in high rise buildings in the tropics. The design tool, based on wind tunnel studies and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations, was then applied to four cities in the tropics: Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Jakarta and Hong Kong. Can thermal comfort be achieved using solely natural ventilation? The overall conclusion was that natural ventilation alone cannot generally provide thermal comfort in high rise buildings in the tropics.
An important element in the natural ventilation design procedure is the flow-pressure characteristics of a window with a given opening area. The flow in the room is another important element that is often ignored in the design phase due to lack of relevant information on the air movement. This paper shows the outcome of experiments with the room air distribution. The results show that the velocity distribution in the occupied zone can be described by a semi empirical model.
In natural ventilation systems fresh air is often provided through opening of windows. However, the knowledge of the performance of windows is rather limited. Computation of natural ventilation air flow through windows is most commonly made using discharge coefficients, that are regarded as being constant. The reported results show that the discharge coefficient for a window opening cannot be regarded as a constant and that it varies considerably with the size of the opening area, the window type and the temperature difference.
For natural ventilation of rooms there is a wide range of possibilities with regard to the selection of window type, size and location. A bottom hung window mounted near the ceiling is often used as it has proved to work well with regard to draught risk and thermal comfort in the room. However, there is a need for more detailed information on the performance of this and other types of windows to make it possible to use improved design methods for natural ventilation systems.
Natural ventilation driven by a solar chimney attached to a single-room building is investigated experimentally with a small-scale model using a recently developed fine bubble technique. Parameters studied in the experiments are the cavity width of the solar chimney, the solar radiation intensity, the height of the solar chimney, the room inlet area and the solar chimney inlet area. Results showed that for given building geometry and inlet areas, there is an optimum cavity width at which a maximum ventilation flow rate can be achieved.
A number of new techniques have been developed in recent years, by various researchers, to assist in the sizing and positioning of natural ventilation openings. These may be of considerable assistance in the natural ventilation design process, while still allowing architectural freedom. This paper reviews some of the available techniques. The complexity of the configurations accounted for by the procedures ranges from two openings with the indoor air at a uniform temperature to a technique that allows for multiple openings throughout a multi-zone structure.
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