Cities of wind: natural ventilation access in urban design.

Wind access/protection in cities can be affected by the morphological characteristics of the built environment. Town-planning legislation, building codes and city plan regulations influence those characteristics. Substantial climate-responsive changes of such laws and by-laws as well as simplified environmental performance evaluation tools can contribute to the reduction of mechanical ventilation and air conditioning energy loads through natural ventilation-proned urban design. The effects of urban form on wind-driven natural ventilation potential of buildings have been investigated by the authors, in collaboration to the Municipality of Grugliasco - a city neighbouring Turin (Italy) - within the CE-funded research project PRECis (assessing the Potential of Renewable Energy in Cities). The present paper describes the main results of this work. Although not yet exhaustive, these results are encouraging in regard with the possibility of using simplified procedures - easy to be applied by designers and planners - for evaluating wind-driven ventilation potential of alternative urban form configurations.