Natural ventilation due to wind action: practice knowledge against experimental airflow visualization

The aim of this paper is to confront the designers practice knowledge on the behavior of natural ventilation due to wind action in housing buildings with complex internal partitions against experimental analogical airflow visualization. The methodology consisted of a survey with a group of architects, followed by experimental airflow visualization in physical scale models of a housing building, developed with a water table. The results from the survey showed that the architects were divided regarding the best and worst natural ventilation performance among the tested housing units. However, the experimental visualization showed that besides the orientation, other factors regarding the building geometry must also be taken into account. The main conclusion is that the architects practice knowledge is not enough for comprehensively describing the natural ventilation in this type of building, and that the equipment used was very effective and useful for doing it.