indoor comfort

The paper focuses on the assessment of indoor comfort and the energy consumption in a University building, during winter and summer time. The examined building belongs to the Cyprus University of Technology, it is located in coastal city of Limassol and it is used for teaching and offices. The main aim of the paper is to make a comparative study of the occupants’ behaviour and its effects on the building’s energy consumption, as well as on the indoor thermal and optical comfort, between winter and summer season.  

Responsive Building Elements (RBE), as defined in International Energy Agency - Annex 44,are building construction components which are actively used for transfer and storage ofheat, light, water and air. These construction elements (like floors, walls, roofs, foundationetc.) are logically and rationally combined and integrated with building service functions suchas heating, cooling, ventilation and lighting.

In many cases natural ventilation is used to ensure an acceptable indoor environment. However it is difficult to design a building for acceptable ventilation rates and indoor comfort without the proper tools or guidelines. The passive building simulation tool Building Toolbox was extended with natural ventilation models for the design of natural ventilated buildings. The simulation tool was verified with actual measurements during three case studies to ensure its integrity and to illustrate its applicability in this field.