Natural ventilation of urban buildings – summary of URBVENT project

The architectural decisions for building that use natural ventilation should be taken in the initial stages of design when little information is available. A new approach is to compare the potential natural ventilation of known buildings in a new site and to adapt the design of the known example. The potential of natural ventilation may be changed by the barriers to its application: reduced wind velocity, higher temperatures, noise and pollution. Simple models, constructed on measurements, give an indication of the influence of these barriers. The dimensions of the openings may be obtained from a database that contains the most common combinations of meteorological conditions, room and opening size, and airflow rates.