English

The ‘Wind-Rain’ House, was designed by the New Zealand architect, Nigel Cook. First built in New Zealand in 1985 its design concept for indoor thermal comfort is quite different from local conventional houses. This building has a courtyard with a glazed roof, which allows more direct sunlight to come into the building. The glazed roof can be partially opened or closed and is automatically controlled to provide natural ventilation for indoor thermal comfort. The glazed roof can also protect the courtyard space beneath against wind and rain.

Buildings represent the major energy consuming sector in India. Sustainable and climate responsive architecture offers possible solutions to this high energy demand. Vernacular buildings, in contrast to modern 20th century buildings, are more climate receptive to the environment and are based on principles evolved over many generations. The traditional architecture of housing in Chettinadu, Tamil Nadu, India is known for its use of natural and passive methods for a comfortable indoor environment. However, it has not been proved by a detailed and quantitative evaluation method so far.

This paper analyses the energy efficiency of a Ventilated Active Façade (VAF) applied to office buildings in Spain in comparison with conventional façades that comply with the minimum energy requirements of the Spanish Technical Building Regulation (Código Técnico de la Edificación - CTE). The analysis considers the climatic diversity of the 12 climatic zones of Spain. The studied VAF consists of an outer layer element of 2 mm galvanized steel panels and a 3 cm air cavity through which the ventilation air is preheated in winter and exhausted in summer.

Natural ventilation of buildings is a design strategy for the passive cooling of buildings that can be considerably efficient if properly undertaken. In Brazil, as in many other developing countries, spontaneous (self build) housing is often of poor quality. Also, each of these dwellings has a negative impact on the neighbouring ones and on the impact on the urban environment. In the city of Campinas, Brazil, with its hot-humid climate, adequate ventilation is essential for thermal comfort.

This study conducted investigations aimed at clarifying the differences in environmental control behaviour, thermal/air environments and pupils' thermal sensations before and after installation of cooling systems. It also developed guidelines for operating the equipment. Measurements of temperatures and CO2 concentration, visual inspection of environmental control behaviour and questionnaires about thermal sensation were performed in classrooms of one elementary school in Tokyo.

This paper presents a simplified modelling process by using experimental results to form empirical relationships for a particular novel windcatcher natural ventilation and cooling system developed by Monodraught in the United Kingdom. In particular, the behaviour of this system, which is integrated with a DC fan and PV panel without a backup battery, is modelled for the whole year. The impact of natural and night time ventilation with thermal mass on cooling and mitigating overheating is investigated.

In order to ascertain the relationship between opening conditions and indoor airflow characteristics, case studies were conducted by performing CFD analysis using the domain decomposition technique. Reproducibility of the domain decomposition technique was verified through wind tunnel experiments, and the correspondence was confirmed to be satisfactory. The authors confirmed the validity of a method of evaluating cross-ventilation performance which uses wind velocity ratios and ignores regional and meteorological locality.

The convective heat transfer coefficient around the human body is important for evaluating the effects that airflows exert on thermal comfort. However measuring it is generally difficult. Therefore, in this research, a thermal manikin was set up inside a wind tunnel simulating a ventilation environment. This was used to measure the convective heat transfer coefficient around the human body and the relationship between the effects of airflows and the thermal resistance of clothing under various clothing conditions.

The issue of evaluating possible strategies for improving the building stock's energy and environmental performance is crucial. This applies to all buildings including residential and non-residential. In particular, hotels represent a group of both economic importance and public interest. Within the frame of a field study, and in a bottom-up approach, data related to the energy and environmental performance of Hellenic hotels were gathered, along with information related to occupancy levels, indoor environmental quality matters and management procedures.

Old buildings represent, in many countries, a great part of the existing building stock. In France this amounts to more than 30%. It is important that they are retrofitted to improve energy performance. To compare reliable retrofitting measures, it is crucial to know their thermal and energy behaviour, their typological characteristics, the building techniques used and their heating and ventilation systems. This paper presents the results of long-term field measurements in a historical dwelling built in 1906 in Paris.