Methodology for the Evaluation of Natural Ventilation in ... - Cham

energy usage and efficient design. It combines the use of thermal mass, cross ventilation andstacks to passively cool the building. The building‘s stacks not only are a prominent feature inits façade, but also assist in driving buoyancy and stack driven air flow. They are constructed ofglass block, shown in Figure 1, creating a greenhouse effect that warms up air within the shaftwhich as it rises, draws in cooler air through other openings on the façade. The occupants havecontrol over the lights and window openings as shown in Figure 2.The European Patent Office (EPO) is a naturally ventilated office building in The Hague thatuses cross ventilation to passively cool and ventilate the tower portion of the building. Thestructure was built in 1972 by architect R.D. Bleeker, with a limited number of designrequirements for the building. The design includes large amounts of thermal mass and exteriorshading to temper the interior environment and shade it from large solar heat gains, as shown inFigure 3. Each perimeter office is equipped with manually controlled windows, two upperwindows and two lower windows, shown in Figure 4.The Pearson Education Building (Figure 5), otherwise known as the Edinburgh Gate building,combines an open office floor plan with operable windows and louvers to promote naturalventilation and airflow through the building. This building primarily relies on cross-ventilationto meet ventilation and summer cooling requirements. There are three atria located throughoutthe building to assist in ventilating the surrounding offices, and which supply warmer air in thewinter and exhaust warm air in the summer. Built in 1995, the Pearson building incorporatessolar shading, thermal mass, and uses awning type windows (Figure 6).These examples are of buildings that have been in operation a minimum of 5 years and use avariety of natural ventilation strategies. Their performance has been monitored by organizationssuch as NatVent, which is a Pan-European project encouraging the use of natural ventilation inoffice-type buildings. The post-occupancy monitoring of these passively ventilated buildingsprovides critical insight into the functioning and performance of specific buildings thatincorporate various design strategies. These buildings were assessed primarily based on remotemonitoring, which only provides part of the overall performance.19