Search

In view of the ageing domestic building stock and increasing reliance on fossil fuels for cooling and ventilation of buildings, there is an urgent need for improved design knowledge and sustainable...

Designing naturally ventilated deep, open-plan offices could improve occupants’ thermal comfort and productivity and ensure energy reductions; however, this can be challenging when relying on facad...

Natural ventilation strategies as effective low energy refurbishment solutions are identified within this research study, for an existing urban multi-storey apartment building in Athens, representative of over four-million Greek urban residential buildings. Retrofit strategies were evaluated using occupant comfort criteria and the existing ventilation strategy, for a single apartment using dynamic thermal simulations. These strategies included individual day and night ventilation, a wind-catcher and a dynamic façade. Suitable openings operation in response to environmental parameters provided sufficient day and night ventilation and occupant comfort. The inclusion of a wind-catcher yielded very little improvement to the ventilation performance. However, the combined operation of the wind-catcher and the dynamic façade delivered operative temperature reductions of up to 7 °C below the base-case strategy, and acceptable ventilation rates for up to 65% of the cooling period. The successful performance of the proposed strategies highlights their potential for reducing energy consumption and improving thermal comfort in a large number of buildings in hot climates.

Natural ventilation in apartment dwellings in densely built regions could improve occupants' summer thermal comfort and reduce the rapidly increasing energy demand for cooling. This research identified natural ventilation strategies as energy efficient refurbishment solutions for domestic buildings. Four retrofit strategies were tested against the existing single-sided ventilation of an urban multi-storey apartment building in Greece, using computational fluid dynamics simulations. During buoyancy driven flows, acceptable ventilation rates for comfort could be achieved with the implementation of a wind-catcher and a dynamic façade. Under wind-driven ventilation, these strategies delivered significant increases in ventilation rates (up to seven times) and contributed to reductions in indoor air temperatures of up to 2 °C, relative to the existing strategy. Cooling by water evaporation enhanced the cooling performance of the wind-catcher providing up to 4 °C temperature reductions. The successful performance of the proposed strategies highlights their significant potential for reducing energy consumption and improving thermal comfort.