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Radiative heat exchanges inside buildings remarkably affect the thermal balance of the human body in confined spaces and the related thermal comfort sensations of people. The mean radiant temperature is an important component of this balance. Unfortunately, it is usually computed by means of too simplified relationships, which significantly influence the comfort evaluations. Such simplified approaches are also accountable for a less effective design of HVAC systems which, in turn, could result in high energy consumption in the climatization of buildings. However, an accurate evaluation of the mean radiant temperature, especially when high intensity sources are present in a given internal space, depends on the angle factors between human subjects and surrounding surfaces of the enclosure. Angle factors, in turn, are direct functions of the projected area factors of the human body. Presently, there is still a certain lack in the availability of simple and reliable methods for computing angle factors of people in assigned postures, particularly in case of complex geometry and presence of heat high intensity sources, like sun. A comprehensive method is here introduced for evaluating the thermal comfort conditions of indoor spaces, avoiding the difficult singling out of several algorithms, dispersed in an inorganic way in the literature. A further contribution consists in the possibility of evaluating geometrically complex enclosures also in presence of direct solar radiation entering the room. Moreover, an analytical method for computing the projected area factors, based on experimental results, obtained by means of a photographic apparatus on purpose designed, is included in the methodology. An application of the method to a typical building situation in presence of direct solar radiation is also proposed.

Cigarette smoke is the main source of indoor chemical and toxic elements. Cadmium (Cd), Thallium (Tl), Lead (Pb) and Antimony (Sb) are important contributors to smoke-related health risks. Data on the association between Rare Earth Elements (REE) Cerium (Ce) and Lanthanum (La) and domestic smoking are scanty. To evaluate the relationship between cigarette smoke, indoor levels of PM

The world energy demand is continuously growing, which means an increase in consumption for all modern fuels or stronger effort on the development and improvement of renewable technologies. Moreover, Developing Countries claims more energy and they have often wide unutilized or unusable lands. The solar energy represents a useful opportunity for these Countries. The Solar Pond is both a solar collector and a thermal storage for long period and is suitable to use in wide sunny areas. Solar pond technology is able to supply heat for several applications requiring low-grade thermal energy or for electrical power production. In order to produce electrical energy from solar ponds it is necessary to use systems fed by low enthalpy sources, such Thermoelectric Generator (TEG) and Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC). In this paper, a model of a Solar Pond for power generation is analyzed in conjunction with an Organic Rankine Cycle. The model has been validated using climate data of an area near to Palermo city (Italy) and exactly the Test Reference Year developed by the Authors.

The general aim of the experimental study, presented in this paper, was that to investigate the relationship between the characteristics of five different types of LED (Light Emitting Diode) lamps, which are nowadays those allowing the highest energy consumption reduction, and the humans non image-forming (NIF) reactions.

The tourist sector, despite the present severe constraints imposed by the sanitary emergence, can be considered as an important component of almost all countries’ economies. In Italy agriturism, in particular, has been experiences a continuously rising trend in recent years. Clearly, such great interest towards these businesses also calls for a deep attention by an energy point of view, in sight of an energy efficiency improvement, hence a lowering of the pressure that such facilities exert to the natural environment. On the other hand, the European Union has been engaged, for a long time, in awarding the tourist accommodations environmental excellence brands, like the EU Ecolabel. Unfortunately, the achievement of such excellence brands requires the capability of managing complex energy and environmental data, which is often not the prerogative of people running such facilities. In order of contributing to overcome this difficulty, and with the aim of helping the addressing of agritourism towards a Nearly Zero Energy path, we propose here a simple approach that does not require the modelling and simulation of the energy behaviour of an agritourism, being essentially based on the application of easy-to-use ARERA (Italian Regulatory Authority for Energy Networks and Environment) datasheets scheme. On purpose, an application of the method, involving two typical Sicilian agritourism, is presented. The obtained results showed the viability of the proposed methodology, although the need of an update and/or replacement of some technical datasheets arose.

The energy efficiency interventions and rehabilitation actions regarding university campuses are characterized by an emblematic impact, representing significant examples of good practices that a given community could adopt, even at the city level. Starting from the idea that campuses may be regarded as small scale models of cities, a quantitative method for estimating to which extent the adoption of a given set of interventions by a municipality could contribute to make such city close to a nearly zero energy profile is proposed. To accomplish this task, the study considers the low carbon transition path of the campus of the University of Palermo and applies a simple method that, implementing an idea firstly developed by Yoshida et al. (2017), provides a rapid and effective graphical representation of the level of the success reached by the campus in terms of accomplishment of the nearly zero energy targets. The analysis of the transferability of such method to cities has shown that it can also be easily adopted by a city's administration and can be used for assessing the effectiveness of actions typically belonging to a city's energy policy, such as the public procurement and the waste management, apart from the actions regarding the public transportation system and the energy efficiency of the public building stock.

The need to reduce greenhouse gases emission produced by the building sector leads to the research of renewable and less impacting materials that can replace traditional ones. This subject has encouraged new researches on biocomposite concretes with the aim to exploit renewable resources like vegetal fibres intended as materials whose production processes are generally characterized by low costs and energy demand. This biocomposite is obviously much lighter than concrete and, therefore, can be suitably used in such cases where a structure cannot be overloaded, for instance in the realization of a green covering on top of a preexistent building. In this work, a first analysis of the thermal and structural behaviour of a biocomposite concrete, constituted by a mineral matrix (lime) with the addition of vegetal fibres (hemp), has been carried out, with particular attention to the amount of fibres and its granulometry in the mixture. The drying process contemplate a permanence of the material in a thermostatic chamber. The analysis carried out shows that hemp can be used both for the realization of insulation panel (hemp fibres alone) and as a construction material (hemp bast and concrete mix). This biocomposite has shown good insulation properties and some mechanical resistance. However, the results show that further analyses should be carried out on the drying process of the material, as it can greatly influences thermal and mechanical properties.

The functional performances of conventional roundabouts (single-lane and multi-lane) and innovative roundabouts (spiral, flower, C and turbo) can be improved through right-turn bypass lanes controlled by stop, yield or free-flow signs. The article presents evaluations of the emissions of air pollutants (carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particle pollution (PM10 and PM2.5)), fuel consumption and construction, management, energetic and environmental costs in roundabouts without or with bypass lanes (controlled by stop, yield or free-flow). The suggested methodology has a general character and can be applied as a multi-parametric criterion for choosing road intersections, although, in the present paper, it has been employed only for a case study. For the aims of this research, we employed recent closed-form formulations to determine roundabout performances, moreover, we used the COPERT IV® software to estimate air emissions in nine different types of vehicles. Numerous traffic simulations were carried out. The variation in the maximum hourly traffic Qmax and annual traffic QTOT provided the appropriate domains of the examined geometric layouts, both in functional and environmental terms and with regard to generalized costs, estimated for a 10-year period. It resulted that the introduction of right-turn bypasses in all arms of conventional roundabouts with a one ring lane and one lane at the entries (single-lane roundabouts) is the most cost-effective when the flows entering the roundabout are higher than Qmax = 2000 veh/h. Moreover, free-flow bypass lanes always provide greater capacity and lower delays than stop- or yield-signaled bypasses. However, with extremely high Qmax values, stop-controlled bypasses guarantee lower fuel consumption, while those with a yield sign lower total costs.

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552 Recent years have seen an increasing public interest in issues related to energy saving and environmental pollution reduction in the building sector. As a result, many directives have been issued, the most important being the Directive 2010/31/EU (EPBD Recast) on the energy performance of buildings, which requires that "Member States shall ensure that by 31 December 2020 all new buildings are nearly zero-energy buildings". This goal can be obtained not only by reducing energy demand for heating and cooling, but also, for example, by improving building envelope performances. In this work, a first analysis of the thermal and structural behaviour of a biocomposite material, constituted by a natural resin (rosin) and vegetal fibres (hay), has been performed, with particular attention to the share of fibres and the granulometry in the mixture. The biocomposite has shown both good insulation properties and mechanical resistance. However, the results show that further analyses should be performed on the optimisation of the samples' preparation process.

In this chapter, we try to connect the urban design features with energy consumption and consequent pollution parameters. After a review of a selected set of approaches to Urban Energy Systems study with a special focus on electrical power systems, urban energy systems are proposed as networks of multi-source hybrid energy hubs, where different energy flows are collected at the same bus and can be stored, delivered or transformed as needed. Resources at the hub and infrastructures interact with each other; therefore, both definition and boundaries of such energy systems at urban level are difficult to be clearly outlined. Similarly, the possibility to generate new operational models based on existing critical urban infrastructures is also challenging. This contribution proposes a preliminary study of urban energy hubs. Operations of thermal, electrical and mobility infrastructures are considered as qualifying features of the hub, but still the interconnected operation is not taken into account. The application part shows, indeed, the analysis and optimized design of the energy system serving two different urban districts. The related optimized parametric design of power generation infrastructures is considered as a function of urban features. The results about emissions and costs provide some interesting conclusions about the linkage between energy planning and urban features at district level, thus allowing, as possible application of this work, an energy-based territorial planning for urban contexts.

In the last few years, more and more attention has been focused on energy issues, as it is pointed out, for example, by the Directive 2002/91/EC on the Energy Performance of Buildings and Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources. However, in order to do that, reliable tools for technicians to design systems for such topics should be provided. Nowadays, several software are available; the weak point is the availability of reliable climatic data and, above all, the ones referring to solar radiation. In this work, after a short overview of the world climatic databases, a description of three statistical methods for the elaboration of a climatic reduced set of data is reported. Then, referring to the climatic station of Palermo, Italy, we build three different sets of data utilizing the three statistical methods and compare these sets of data by means of two applications, namely the energy consumption of a simple building and the energy produced by a photovoltaic (PV) system.

Worldwide, governments are introducing several rules and standards in the aim of limiting the quantity of primary energy for air conditioning of buildings and supporting the use of renewable source of energy for generating thermal and electric energy to be utilized in buildings such as the European Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings [1]. Along with these interventions, another important action takes currently place in the building sector, that is the introduction of passive structural components of the envelope, able to reduce the requirements of energy for air conditioning purposes. Among these building components, the so-called green roofs are becoming more and more interesting for designer and buildings owners. This simple technical solution, in fact, apart its effectiveness in lowering particularly the summer cooling loads, could make more attractive the shape of each single building and, when adopted on a large extension, of an entire city district, reducing the risks for urban heat island phenomena that represent a severe problem in urban contexts. In this work, a short review of the literature models for computing the energy balance of roof coverings will be proposed, with particular reference in modelling the heat exchange of a canopy.

The Eco-label scheme is becoming ever more important in the environmental certification of products and services, especially in light of the recent ambitious aim of containing greenhouse emissions and improving the efficiency of utilizing energy sources. A recently-introduced hypothesis concerns the European Eco-label scheme relating to buildings, in the awareness that the construction industry is of primary importance to the whole economic and social life of states. This scheme should adopt an integrated approach to environmental problems and include construction, day-to-day management, and the possible disposal of building materials, throughout the life cycle of the building. In addition, in consideration of the particular scope of buildings, the main aim of this new scheme should also be to ensure enhanced conditions of comfort to the occupants of these buildings. In sight of this challenge, the building can be regarded as a summation of components (each of them characterized by a given level of environmental quality) or as a unique physical entity aimed at delivering suitable indoor condition to occupants with an assigned amount of primary energy and with a limited impact on the natural environment. In the paper, both approaches will be investigated, keeping also in mind the initiatives that are currently on the ground in the aim of establishing ecological criteria for the award of the community Eco-label for buildings.

The rapid improvement in the standard of living requires more detailed and sophisticated methods of evaluating comfort conditions. But, maintaining thermal comfort conditions in confined environments may require complex regulation procedures and the proper management of heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. In turn, the requirements for indoor thermal comfort do not necessarily coincide with those of energy saving purposes, which in the last years are becoming a crucial issue owing to the enactment of the European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). The aim of this work is to compare different indoor control thermal comfort strategies in view of the evaluation of the energy cost of quality in buildings. In particular, a new PID-fuzzy controller is presented and compared with a classic ON–OFF controller. The performances of the two controllers are quantified and compared by means of two cost functions that are based on the quadratic forms of the overall energy required by the thermal fluid and of the deviation from the preferred set point of the predicted mean vote (PMV). It is found that the application of the PID-fuzzy controller results in lower costs of energy input and lower deviation from set point of PMV.

One of the most important components affecting the human thermal balance is represented by its radiative exchange with the surrounding surfaces. The projected area of the human body is an important parameter of these thermal exchanges. Unfortunately, although the anthropometric measures of people are characterized by significant differences among various populations, the experimental data currently available in the literature refers to a small group of people. Moreover, measurements are generally performed regardless of the statistical significance of the involved subjects with respect to the population to which they belong. In this study, a statistical study is introduced that is based on a large analysis of the anthropometric characteristics of the analysed population. Moreover, a new experimental procedure is applied to evaluate the projected area factor and the effective radiating area of a sample of people belonging to the population of southern Italy. The calculated projected area factors are fairly in accordance with those originally proposed by Fanger for standing people. For seated people, however, the experimental values of the present study show some differences from those of the literature. This study provided a tentative explanation for these discrepancies.

This paper addresses an important problem in the evaluation of the thermal comfort of people living or working in the sort of confined spaces typical of current architecture. In the details, a new algorithm is proposed for the evaluation of the angle factors of people within rooms characterized by complex shapes, where the envelope components are not always mutually orthogonal. The algorithm is based on field data obtained by means of an experimental photographic apparatus which allows measurements of projected area factors of seated or standing people in such complex confined environments.

Thermal indoor microclimate conditions in museum buildings refer to two important requirements: the preservation of works of art and the comfort of visitors to these buildings and/or those working inside them. Unfortunately, different works of art have different internal parameters which render the management and control of the indoor thermal microclimate difficult. In this work the values proposed by various standards for the thermal environment of museum buildings have been revised. Moreover, the indoor microclimatic conditions relating to people's comfort have been described, with the aim of singling out possible common ranges for these parameters. With this aim, a useful simultaneousness index has also been introduced. Finally, the proposed approach has been applied to an old Italian building for purposes of clarification.

The history of prisons is full of contradictions in every historical period and the evolution of prison buildings expresses many faces in the history of each country. The concept of punishment imposed on the offender has undergone several changes over the centuries, related to culture, politics, and to the evolution of the human thought. For centuries, tiny closed spaces have been adapted for the offenders' detention, without ever thinking to create an ad hoc functional distribution of spaces. The issue of the design of prisons has often been a reason of debate, and it is still an open field of discussion. From a legal point of view, in recent years there has been a rethinking of the problem. From a social point of view, detention should be seen as a time for change and transformation of the offender into a rehabilitated subject, and the EU is forcing the Countries to make important steps ahead. But, to achieve this goal, we all as a high level cultural society need a change in the way of thinking and approaching the problem and adequate structures, to support individuals by offering them the opportunity, “which in civil life they did not have or have not been able to exploit”. The Smart Cities “revolution” could represent the right opportunity to introduce a change of perspective and technical design thinking approach also in this kind of buildings. In this work, we describe a preliminary step of an emblematic case study of a recent prison building, which has many common characteristics to most Italian prison buildings. We propose a completely new approach to understand and deal with the prisons' environments and users.

The paper provides a contribution for populating database of three physical parameters needed to model energy performance of buildings with green roofs: “coverage ratio” ( σ f ), leaf area index (LAI) and leaf temperature ( T f ). On purpose, six plant species were investigated experimentally: Phyla nordiflora, Aptenia lancifolia , Mesembryanthenum barbatus , Gazania nivea, Gazania uniflora , and Sedum . Proper ranges of the cited parameters have been found for each species. The here indicated ranges of σ f values refer to different growth levels of the species in the same lapse of time, that is four months. Single measured LAI values are also reported for the same plants. As for the T f (upper and lower layer), ranges of revealed temperatures refer to those detected from 10:30 a.m. to 16:30 p.m. of a selected day. Additionally, the dependence of T f on climatic parameters was investigated. A linear equation resulted the best fitting curve for all experimental T f data and the corresponding solar radiation data (with autocorrelation coefficients between 0.80 and 0.98). Furthermore, the effect potentially produced on building energy consumption by these species was analyzed using a simulation tool. Estimated cooling energy savings range approximately between 8% and 20% depending on adopted plants.

Intro: RESPIRA (EU Funded - Italia-Malta 07-13) indicated that living in Malta is a risk factor for asthma. Aim: To determine the chemical profile of PM2.5 in Malta, and compare with reference values. Methods: Using FAI pumps at 10l/min/48hr, samples were collected on Teflon and Quartz filters from 6 schools and 46 homes in Malta. Total ICP-MS measurement (Residual+extracted), X ray Fluorescence, and thermo-optical methods(TO) were used for analysis by CNR in Rome. Aeroqual IQM60 counters were used for total PM2.5 mass. All data in ng/m3, Mean, (1st to 3rd quartile) of all 48 hour measurements., N/A

The smart city is increasingly becoming a concept of reference for what concerns the planning and the spatial development of cities. The concept of smart city cannot be easily standardized. It is based on a multi-service and multi-sectorial planning regarding various urban functions (energy, mobility, waste, etc.) and places them under a common denominator: the use of advanced technologies for minimizing resources consumption and simultaneously increase the quality of life of the citizens. This paper aims to give an overview on the concept of smart city and outline what, at present, are the main intervention areas considered at European level. Then the paper focuses on the public lighting that is among the sectors most affected by “smart actions” by the Public Administrations. The work concludes with a proposal for a retrofit of the public lighting system in a small town in Sicily (Italy).

Today the utilization of renewable energy sources is very important to support the traditional ones, and also in order to reach the objectives fixed by the Kyoto Protocol. In this context, also well-known technologies related to the electric energy production, formerly not suitable – due to the poor technological level of the components or due to the high costs linked to the system efficiency – may now find a suitable collocation. Among these technologies, the thermoelectric effect may be very advantageous in some particular applications of small power. A power generation system utilizing this technology has been studied by the authors. This system utilizes the thermal difference between a lower temperature sink, e.g. a water reservoir, and a higher temperature source, such as exhaust heat (e.g. from industrial processes) or as produced by solar energy captured by an extended surface. The thermoelectric generator is made up of thermocouples placed on the internal surface of a tubular heat exchanger, located inside the water body and filled up with hot water coming from the energy source. In this paper, the physical mechanisms and the energy balances governing the system are described in order to evaluate its energetic feasibility. Once fixed, the electrical power required by the end user, the system parameters are optimized with the aim to have the most compact equipment and components. A simulation of the proposed system was performed referring to the city of Palermo, Italy. A very poor economic convenience of the system has been found in this applications.

The building sector is still one of the most energy consuming sectors in Italy, like developed countries in Europe. At European level, the main policy driver related to the energy use in buildings is the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD, 2002/91/EC) and its recast. Through the EPBD in- troduction, requirements for certification, inspections, training or renovation are now imposed in Member States. In order to fulfill the expected changes, local regulations are a key factor aiming at sustainable territorial planning. It is thus required support the issue of local rules at municipal level in order to guide local administrators and technicians and to limit discretional power of bureaucracy. In this paper, a review of the most common practices for building regulations in Europe and in Italy is proposed, then the role and the framework of a municipal building regulation for the Southern European area accounting for sustainability features is discussed.

Italy, like several Mediterranean countries, holds a very large number of cultural artifacts that are often exhibited and saved inside museums. Museums are usually part of historical buildings that, not rarely, originally had a different intended use and that have been currently transformed in place for conservation and for exhibition of works of art. The use of historical buildings as museums leads to limitations in the management and distribution of exhibition space, in design and managing HVAC systems and in the achievement of targets relating to the continuous monitoring of the microclimate for people comfort and for preservation of works of art. Moreover, the costs of the operation and maintenance of the HVAC system for this particular type of confined environment are often very expensive and the proper optimization of the required operations plays a main role. In this paper, authors propose a new decision support tool for curators regarding the operation and maintenance management of HVAC systems in museums especially in the case of their belonging to cultural heritage buildings.

Thermal radiative exchanges of the human body with surrounding surfaces play an essential role in describing the thermal conditions of people in a given environment. Moreover, they could be induced by, among other causes, the presence of high intensity radiant sources, like lighting spots or infrared heating panels. This implies that a suitable set of radiation data related to human body anthropometry is required. This set of data mainly comprises the body surface area, the clothing area factor, the effective radiation area factor, and projected area factors. Several analytical or experimental methods may be utilized in order to compute these parameters. A detailed description of the most common of these will be illustrated in this study, pointing out their main features and their ease of application or otherwise. Thereafter, with reference to a field experiment conducted by means of purpose-built experimental apparatus, a detailed analysis concerning the determination of the values of clothing area factor, effective radiation area factor and projected area factors of a sample of standing and seated, and male and female subjects of the population of southern Italy will be described. In addition, the results of a study to determine differences in anthropometric parameters with regard to different gender and nationalities will be reported. The study will conclude by analyzing a specific case-study.

Recently linear synchronous generator for the exploitation of sea wave energy has been proposed. That solution does not require reactive power to magnetize but needs permanent magnets to assure the excitation. The electrical energy generated by such a device must be converted and conditioned in order to match the instantaneous utility requirements and a power link from the sea to an interconnection is needed. In this paper in order to overcome that difficulty, the authors propose the use of the electrical energy generated to generate “in situ” hydrogen. As a result the output of the generation would be hydrogen that can be stored and used when needed The proposed electrical generator is a PM linear synchronous generator.

The thermal sensation experienced by a subject in a confined environment is significantly affected by the radiative heat exchange between the human body and the surrounding surfaces: it contributes as far as 30% of the whole thermal exchanges of the subject. Besides, the presence of high-intensity radiation sources like, for example, the sun, may appreciably modify the radiant field to which people are exposed. As a consequence, this could alter notably the comfort conditions. In order of properly taking into account this issue, a simple analytical method is introduced in this work, that allows the easy evaluation of the thermal radiant field induced by the presence of the solar radiation. An application to a typical thermal comfort computation is finally presented.

The control and the monitoring of indoor thermal conditions represents a pre-eminent task with the aim of ensuring suitable working and living spaces to people. Especially in industrialised countries, in fact, several rules and standards have been recently released in order of providing technicians with suitable design tools and effective indexes and parameters for the checking of the indoor microclimate. Among them, predicted mean vote (PMV) index is often adopted for assessing the thermal comfort conditions of thermal moderate environments. Unfortunately, the PMV index is characterised by non-linear features, that could determine some difficulties when monitoring and controlling HVAC equipment. In order of overcoming these problems, a fuzzy control for HVAC system is here described. It represents a new simple approach, focused on the application of an adaptive fuzzy controller that avoids the modelling of indoor and outdoor environments. After a brief description of the method, some simulation results are presented. A simplified application, referring to a room belonging to an university building, is finally reported. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Man in developed countries is looking for new and more suitable paradigms of a correct evolution, founded on an improved level of quality of life, on a pollution-free environment and on the availability of rising amount of time to be spent in pleasure and cultural activities.

In museums, environmental indoor conditions should, contemporaneously, preserve the exhibited works of art and ensure the comfort conditions for people. Unfortunately, human and artworks requirements are characterised by different values of the physical indoor parameters that, occasionally, could become conflicting. In the paper, these problems are addressed by means of a literature analysis, with a specific attention to thermal comfort conditions of people. The possibility of finding common ranges of values for both requisites is finally discussed. Some recent technical recommendations on the matter have also been considered for indicating some HVAC equipment and appliances to be adopted in museums.

In this paper a generalised model is described for the analysis of the pollutant substances released in the atmosphere by urban transportation means. It essentially requires data referring to the running transportation fleet, year by year, that are generally on disposal of the local administrators through official data-bases. Pollutant emissions are here taken into account by means of the algorithms provided by the COPERT methodology, that applies to many European countries. The method, by means of a suitable statistical analysis of data concerning the running car fleet, allows also the definition of an useful indicator, that is the “yearly average vehicle”, that can be assumed as representative of the average pollutant emissions of a given urban context. This indicator can be adopted for suitably ranking the environmental effects produced by different policy options concerning the transportation sector.

Thermal comfort of people working or living in confined spaces depends, to a large extent, on the radiative thermal exchanges. These contributions are expressed, among other things, as a function of the mean radiant temperature that, in the general cases where there is a presence of high intensity sources, must be expressed as a function of the angle factors between subjects and the surrounding surfaces of enclosures. Angle factors, in turn, depend on the projected area factors. Despite this evidence, at the present there is a lack in the availability of simple and reliable methods capable of computing angle factors of people in assigned postures with respect to complex geometry buildings. In this work, a new algorithm is proposed for the computation of the angle factors of people within rooms characterised by complex shapes. The algorithm is based on the results obtained by means of an experimental photographic apparatus which allows measurements of projected area factors of seated or standing people in such complex confined environments. Finally, the algorithm for computing angle factors in complex geometric situations is applied to a dome building. The effectiveness of the algorithm in computing the local thermal conditions in the building is also shown.