Barriers to natural ventilation design of office buildings.

Perceived barriers restricting the implementation of natural or simple fan assisted ventilationsystems in the design of new office type buildings and in the refurbishment of existing suchbuildings have been identified in seven central and north European countries with moderate orcold climate: United Kingdom, Belgium, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden andDenmark.The barriers were identified in an in-depth study with structured interviews based onquestionnaires among leading designers and decision makers: architects, consultant engineers,contractors, developers, owners and governmental decision makers. The study is part of theNatVent (TM) project being carried out under the EC JOULE programme.The interviews identified a significant lack of knowledge and experience on special designednatural ventilation in office buildings compared to the knowledge and experience onmechanical ventilation. In addition there is a lack of sources to natural ventilation knowledge instandards, guidelines and building studies and a desire for new design tools on naturalventilation including calculation rules and easy-to-use, simple and advanced computerprogrammes.