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Courtyard buildings embraced as a passive design paradigm, find wide application in modulating outdoor climatic conditions and fostering energy efficiency. Consequently, exploring passive strategies to mitigate the repercussions of climate change becomes a compelling priority. However, previous studies have predominantly emphasized the daytime performance of traditional courtyards in hot climates, often overlooking their performance throughout the entire day. This oversight includes the impact of courtyards in releasing stored heat into the air during nighttime, commonly referred to as "the reversed impact of the courtyard." This study evaluates the reversed thermal impact of glazed "modernized" courtyard envelope during nighttime and day-exposed radiation. This analysis considers the complex interaction between incoming and outgoing radiation flows. The study employed a combined approach involving onsite measurements and numerical simulations centered upon an educational building within a hot-arid zone. The scope of the study encompasses diverse courtyard geometries and various mitigation strategies, all characterized by heightened proportions of glazed surface areas. The results, depending on prevailing weather conditions, reveal the potential for these factors to reduce heating time from 17 h to just 2 h at the optimum. In contrast, there is an increase in cooling impact, ranging from 7 to 22 h throughout both day and night, with scenarios representing the least and most favorable cases, respectively. For designing processes, optimizing aspect ratio without exceeding 1.6 and glazed façade orientation is essential to control multi-reflection at the modernized courtyard envelope criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate the effects of courtyard envelope design on the energy performance of office buildings in the hot summer–cold winter region of China. Two types of courtyard buildings were simulated with 200 energy models by changing the following variables: window–wall ratio (south, north, east, and west walls), window U-value, wall U-value, solar heat gain coefficient, and orientation. The treed Gaussian process (TGP) sensitivity analysis method was employed to quantify the contributions of parameters related to courtyard design that result in the changes of annual cooling, heating, lighting, and total energy consumption. The results show that the courtyard envelope design has a significant effect on the energy consumption in this case study. The most influential factor affecting annual cooling energy consumption and the annual total energy consumption is the orientation, which is responsible for 37% and 81%, respectively, in two layouts to annual cooling energy use. The corresponding proportion increased to 45% and 86% in terms of the total energy consumption. The most influential factor influencing annual heating energy use is the window U-value, which explained nearly 60% of the changes to the heating energy use. The effect of the solar heat gain coefficient in two kinds of layouts is as high as 82% and 79% for lighting energy use in this case study. Due to the different courtyard forms, the magnitude of the effect of the parameters on energy consumption and the main trend of the effect is slightly different.

This paper aims to investigate the effects of courtyard envelope design on the energy performance of office buildings in the hot summer–cold winter region of China. Two types of courtyard buildings were simulated with 200 energy models by changing the following variables: window–wall ratio (south, north, east, and west walls), window U-value, wall U-value, solar heat gain coefficient, and orientation. The treed Gaussian process (TGP) sensitivity analysis method was employed to quantify the contributions of parameters related to courtyard design that result in the changes of annual cooling, heating, lighting, and total energy consumption. The results show that the courtyard envelope design has a significant effect on the energy consumption in this case study. The most influential factor affecting annual cooling energy consumption and the annual total energy consumption is the orientation, which is responsible for 37% and 81%, respectively, in two layouts to annual cooling energy use. The corresponding proportion increased to 45% and 86% in terms of the total energy consumption. The most influential factor influencing annual heating energy use is the window U-value, which explained nearly 60% of the changes to the heating energy use. The effect of the solar heat gain coefficient in two kinds of layouts is as high as 82% and 79% for lighting energy use in this case study. Due to the different courtyard forms, the magnitude of the effect of the parameters on energy consumption and the main trend of the effect is slightly different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]