Passive cooling techniques driven purely by natural wind forces present a highly attractive environmental solution in the perspective of low energy architecture. The physics governing passive cooling are well understood and have been extensively discussed in the literature. Indeed the necessary design details that must be incorporated to achieve the full potential of the technique, such as exposed thermal massive and good internal and solar gain control, are also well understood.
The traditional architecture of the city of Sana's is considered to be one of the best examples of architectural heritage in the world. It also reflects the builders' full understanding of local traditional building materials and of the climatic environment. Building airflow helps maintain comfort in these buildings and therefore the aim behind this study is to understand how the vernacular houses of the old city of Sana's perform in terms of natural ventilation. The study also examines the role of air temperature and wind speed in natural ventilation.
The residences that Muslims built in the Iberian Peninsula respond to a similar architectural type. They are commonly distributed around a central elongated courtyard, in whose north wing a tower is normally attached. The spatial sequence established between the tower and the patio improves the environmental conditions of the complex through the combination of some specific cooling strategies. This article includes a typological analysis of this configuration, a study of its environmental aspects, as well as the computer simulations undertaken to evaluate the hypothesis.
Analyses present and historical Thai houses in terms of climate, culture and technology, as background to an investigation of the potential for use of natural ventilation as a passive cooling system for new house designs. It suggests that natural ventilation can provide a thermally comfortable indoor environment for 20% of the year. Also develops comprehensive design guidelines for natural ventilation using CFD (computational fluid dynamics).
Modern UK office buildings have a reputation of being energy profligate, largely due to the fan power requirements of commercial air conditioning. Most architects and HVAC designers only associate low-energy consumption with natural ventilation. However, the UK electricity utilities have peak maximum demands in winter, and buildings need to be designed for year-round lowenergy usage. Relatively few monitored studies of the total annual energy implications of natural and mechanical ventilation strategies operating in conjunction with fabric thermal storage have been published.
We calculate the influence of thermal mass and night ventilation on the maximum indoor temperature in summer. The results for different locations in the hot humid climate of Israel are presented and analyzed. We find that the maximum obtained indoor temperature depends linearly on the temperature difference between day and night at the site. The fit can be applied as a tool to predict from the temperature swing of the location the maximum indoor temperature decrease due to the thermal mass and night ventilation.
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.
Passive cooling techniques driven purely by natural wind forces present a highly attractive environmental solution in the perspective of low energy architecture. The physics governing passive cooling are well understood and have been extensively discussed in the literature. Indeed the necessary design details that must be incorporated to achieve the full potential of the technique, such as exposed thermal massive and good internal and solar gain control, are also well understood.
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