Comfort and passive cooling

This paper is concerned with aspects of thermal comfort which are particularly relevant to passive cooling. A fundamental difference between cooling in a warm climate and heating in a cool climate is recognised due to the relationship between the physiological neutral temperature and ambient heat sinks. The need for a comfort performance assessment of a building design is established. The notion of person cooling as distinct from space cooling justifies the need for a behavioural comfort model as distinct from a fixed state model. Brief results from simulation and field studies are offered to support this view. This topic is identified as one needing further research. Other potential research topics include, psychological effects, airflow design for comfort, outdoor comfort, associated non-thermal comfort - glare and noise control.