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A double skin façade (DSF) aims at reducing heating and cooling loads by taking advantage of daylight and utilizing heated air for space heating. To take advantage of a DSF a sophisticated design is required. In this paper a DSF building that has overheating problems was selected to verify the causes and propose remedial solutions. The problem was verified by analyzing the measured solar radiation, inside and outside temperature and air velocity. The results of the measurement analysis showed that airflow congestion caused overheating inside the building.
A solar chimney channel (SCC) was proposed as a solution to enhance natural ventilation (NV) through the DSF. Simulations using EnergyPlus incorporating an airflow network were used to verify the proposed solutions. Two remedial design options were considered. The first was to extend the height of the solar chimney channel and the second was to increase penetration of solar radiation through the outer skin and the solar absorptivity of the inner wall of the SCC path. The thermal environment inside the DSF and the indoor cooling load of spaces adjacent to the DSF were investigated through simulation. The results showed that natural ventilation of the inside of the DSF would be increased by applying the two options. Especially, in the case of improving the thermal effect at the SCC path, the annual cooling load could be reduced by almost 3% (2.84%) compared with a non-SCC case.