Natural ventilation design for a concert hall.

This paper describes the ventilation analysis undertaken during the design of a new music centre for which it was desired to avoid the use of air conditioning and conventional ducted mechanical ventilation. The main objective was to predict the thermal comfort of occupants in the centre's main auditorium during summertime performances. The analysis was done using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and a dynamic thermal model. The CFD results were used to decide the size and location of openings for natural ventilation, which led to the final design having a much better distribution of incoming fresh air than the initial design. The peak fresh air ventilation rate was reduced, but this did not significantly increase the risk of summertime overheating. The dynamic thermal analysis predicted that the time when the temperature would be over 25°C ranged from 0.3 performance hourslyear with a dense concrete roof construction and an orchestra of 30 to 3.5 performance hourslyear with a lightweight roof and an orchestra of 100. Given that the larger orchestra would not be formal and so could wear lighter clothing, it was concluded that natural ventilation should be a viable strategy for controlling the risk of summertime overheating. However, given uncertainties regarding the usage of the space and UK summertime temperatures in the future, it was recommended that provision was made in the design to enable mechanical cooling to be added at a later date.