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Environmental retrofit: Building integrated passive cooling in housing
Abstract
As the existing housing stock ages throughout Europe, retrofitting offers many opportunities for the substantial improvement of the energy performance of residential buildings and the provision of sustainable alternatives to conventional heating and cooling. The effect of global warming is leading to a widespread use of air conditioning in existing and new residential buildings. This potentially implies an increase in cooling energy and adverse environmental effects on an unprecedented scale. In the hot and dry climate of many south European cities, this could be avoided with the use of an innovative wall integrated passive evaporative cooling system, which harnesses air, water and porous ceramic to provide comfortable indoor conditions. Dr Rosa Schiano-Phan discusses the applicability of such a system to the urban context of Seville in the light of the current Spanish regulatory framework and recent developments of European energy performance standards.
... Initial research linked two trends in architectural shading techniques that emerged separately. One originated in vernacular architecture in the Middle East (Al-Muharem 2008, 2010Feeney 1974;Batterjee 2010); the other was the result of institutional modernist architectural planning in the early years of the State of Israel (Efrat 2004). Both reflect practical widespread local knowledge. ...
... Modernistic architectural design, based on use of expendable energy sources for climate control, has replaced local building traditions. The passive cooling systems were abandoned for energy intensive solutions in building cooling (Schiano-Phan 2010). ...
A seminar combining both a thorough colloquial and formal technique research stage with a studio-based
prototyping stage gives design students the combination of a solid background in archetypical examples of their target
objects and practical experience in making those objects on a small scale. The article includes a showcase of student
work designed during studio seminar “Shade and Shading” held at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem,
as an example for integration of research materials, a preliminary survey phase, and traditional knowledge with
contemporary thinking and craft actions. The seminar focused on development of modular units for passive climate
control by providing shade and shading of building facades and envelope openings. Its products demonstrate the
collaborative, cooperative, reflective, and intertextual aspects of design professions.
... In top-floor apartments, where the roof can be used as an additional surface for the porous ceramic system, the system further enhanced indoor air acclimatisation [105]. Studies conducted by Schiano-Phan in 2010 [106] and Golzari in 2014 [107] concluded that mitigation techniques such as night-time ventilation, solar control and improvements to building envelopes significantly reduced cooling loads. These reductions were often achieved by using a wall-integrated porous ceramic system. ...
Globally, a variety of factors, ranging from ethnicity and occupants’ lifestyles to the local climate characteristics of any studied location, as well as people’s age, can affect thermal comfort assessments. This review paper investigates the energy effectiveness of state-of-the-art passive systems in providing neutral adaptive thermal comfort for elderly people by exploring passive design strategies in four distinct climates, namely Canada, India, Abu Dhabi and the Eastern Mediterranean basin. The aim of the study is to analyse the available data provided by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers’ (ASHRAE) Global Thermal Comfort Database II, version 2.1. The main objective of the study is to develop an effective methodological framework for the on-going development of adaptive thermal comfort theory. To this extent, this study presents a comprehensive review of the assessment of energy effectiveness of passive design systems. To accomplish this, the impact of climate change factors in passive design systems was investigated. A meta-analysis method was adopted to determine the input variables for the statistical analysis. Cramer’s V and Fisher’s Exact tests were used to assess occupants’ thermal sensation votes (TSVs). The findings revealed that there are discrepancies detected between the in situ field experiments and the data recorded in the ASHRAE Global Thermal Comfort Database II. The study findings contribute to the development of adaptive thermal comfort theory by reviewing the existing methodologies globally. Furthermore, a critical review of the significance of occupants’ age differences should be conducted in the identification of neutral adaptive thermal comfort.
... A third of global energy is consumed in the construction sector which also emits 40% of the total CO2. Extreme weather conditions during the past four years (increase of heat and cooling annual demand) have caused higher CO2 emissions [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. Nowadays every environmentally conscious country tries to search for lowering energy use and finding other energy sources. ...
The authors main idea is to build energy plus buildings by means of architectural processes to design passive houses according to the Darmstadt Standard with additional equipment powered by renewable energy. The article presents a comparative financial analysis of passive house buildings with an additional source of power to charge electric cars in Poland and the United States. The analysis is based on market data while also taking into consideration inflation and increases in energy costs. The methodology is based on the calculations required by USA banks for obtaining credit. The emphasis is also on the distinction between commonly used term passive house and the term passive house in accordance with the Darmstadt Standard. The authors are introducing a new terminology to define buildings wrongly named as “passive”. Now Authors will name them Pseudo-Passive Buildings. The research shows that it is profitable to construct nearly zero-energy buildings with photovoltaic installation and the discounted rate on return of investment does not exceed the mortgage length.
... One third of global final energy is consumed by the building sector that also emits 40% of total CO 2 . The peak of the CO 2 emission (10GCO 2 ) was in 2019 because of the extreme weather conditions which increased the annual demand for commercial heating and cooling [2, 3,4,5,6,7,8]. The need to adapt to climate variations with extreme hot summers has led to the modifications of passive buildings. ...
The building sector consumes one-third of global final energy and emits nearly 40% of total CO2 emission. To decrease those numbers, it is necessary to design sustainable buildings, which have low heat and cooling demand. The Passive House standard was designed to meet these requirements however, some imperfections were observed. Therefore, a new approach the “be 2226” standard was put forward. This paper presents major architectural differences of those concepts and discusses their advantages and disadvantages. The main purpose is to develop guidelines how to design energy-efficient passive architecture. The Author used own mixed research method that included literature studies, analyses of technical documentation, in situ examinations, own measurements, and infrared tests. The comparison of two passive standards established strong, proven solutions, as well as incompatibilities and flows of each standard. The research main findings are that all buildings should be built in the passive manner and it would be beneficial to implement mixed standard. The main conclusion is that architectural creation has a great impact on passive solutions in buildings.
... Several research efforts have been made to advance PDC. The use of misting nozzles, shower heads, and porous ceramic units as a direct evaporative cooling mechanism to create the downdraft in lieu of wetted pads was explored Pearlmutter et al., 1996;Schiano-Phan, 2010). To a lesser extent, other cooling mechanisms were studied to evaluate their ability to create a downdraft, either exclusively such as chilled water pipes (Calautit & Hughes, 2016) and indirect evaporative cooling heat exchanger (Elzaidabi, 2009), or in combination with direct evaporative cooling such as porous ceramic units with thermoelectric cooler (Musa, 2008) and shower tower with earth tube ventilation and rotary wheel desiccant dehumidifier (Gokarakonda & Kokogiannakis, 2014). ...
This study aims to advance performance of the common passive downdraft evaporative cooling tower (PDECT) and expand its applicability beyond the hot dry conditions where it is typically used by developing and testing a design of a passive and hybrid downdraft cooling tower (PHDCT). Experimental evaluation on half-scale prototypes of these towers was conducted in Tempe, Arizona, during Summer, 2017. Cooling systems in both towers were operated simultaneously to evaluate performance under identical conditions. Results indicated that the hybrid tower provides significant advantages over the single stage tower as the former outperformed the latter under all ambient conditions.
... A wide range of experimental and computer based work suggests these technologies have a huge potential (Bowman et al., 1997;Bowman et al., 1998;Ford, 2009;Lain & Hensen, 2006;Moura & Ford, 2003;Schiano-phan, 2010;Short, Cook, & Lomas, 2009). In most of these studies the importance of analysing both macro (Kottek et al. 2006) and micro (Hughes et al., 2012) climate is stated. ...
Cooling homes is often important to maintain acceptable internal comfort. This can be achieved by both active and passive solutions. This research focused on passive systems and has examined one hypothesis: that evaporative cooling towers are an important element of plus-energy houses in southern Europe. Refinements to the design of the existing ventilation tower of a Solar Decathlon House developed by the Hochschule für Technik Stuttgart are proposed and tested in eight locations in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain using dynamic thermal and computational fluid dynamics simulations in order to predict energy consumption, mean and peak CO2 levels, temperatures, ventilation rates, cooling potential, fresh air distribution, indoor air quality and water consumption of the evaporative cooling system implemented within the tower. Results show that a 50% reduction of the annual energy demand for space cooling to be satisfied by other systems is achieved without compromising the internal comfort.
Understanding the vernacular architecture is recognizing the limitations and capabilities of the region's climate; in fact, a direct response to existing contexts and resources includes the materials and techniques. The architecture of warm and humid climates also has a particular architectural style, previously used to achieve a sustainable architecture. However, few studies have been conducted to identify vernacular architectural features and their role. The southern edge of Iran has one of the most critical climates in the world. So, cognition and extraction of similarities and differences between the vernacular architecture of Bushehr region with similar climatic zones in other countries in passive cooling techniques, provides suggestions for improvement in this area. In conclusion, these techniques are compared with Bushehr in two categories of natural ventilation and radiation and heat control in areas known to be warm and humid in four countries including Iran, Vietnam, Oman and Malaysia.
This paper reviewed related research works and developments on the traditional architectural element “mashrabiya” focusing on its history, design and structure, typology, and functions in hot climates. Moreover, the paper assessed the effect of the traditional mashrabiya on the indoor thermal environment and thermal comfort in a selected case study building. For this purpose, two similar rooms were investigated in a selected historic building with abundant mashrabiyas located in the Makkah Region, specifically in Old Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The field tests were conducted during a typical hot summer month with two different configurations. The study demonstrated that opening the mashrabiya allowed more airflow into the room during the day and reduced the indoor temperature by up to 2.4 °C as compared to the closed mashrabiya. Besides, the building envelope played an important role in preventing the high fluctuation of the indoor air temperature, where the fluctuation of the rooms air temperature ranged between 2.1 °C and 4.2 °C compared to the outdoor temperature which recorded a fluctuation between 9.4 °C and 16 °C. The data presented here can be used for the future development of the mashrabiya concept and the potential incorporation with passive cooling methods to improve its design according to the requirements of modern buildings in hot climates. Moreover, further studies and tests on mashrabiyas under different climatic conditions are required. Also, the different strategies or materials can be incorporated with mashrabiyas in order to improve its thermal performance.
This paper reports the development of a longitudinal hybrid windcatcher (LHWC) to provide thermal comfort and healthy ventilation for basement in warm humid climate. Two full-scaled computer models and a one-tenth physical model were constructed. The computer simulation found that outdoor wind speed of 1–5 m/s generated air velocities of 0.19–1.01 m/s at the occupants’ zone when the inlet's height was 1 m above the surrounding roofs. Raising the inlet 3 m higher did not produce significant difference air velocity at the occupants’ zone. The physical model experiment outdoor found that 3 m/s wind induced 0.3 m/s air velocity inside it. Meanwhile, with the absence of outdoor wind, the four small exhaust fans could induce 0.05 m/s air velocity inside it. From the computer simulation and physical model, it can be concluded that outdoor wind air could induce physiological cooling and ventilation at the basement. The array of exhaust fans could only induce very low air velocity but it was considered able to ventilate the used air for the basement.
The design and performance of a passive downdraught evaporative cooling (PDEC) system are reported. This is the first application of this technique for housing in Europe. The system was integrated within a house designed and built by University of Nottingham students for the 2010 Solar Decathlon Europe event in Madrid, Spain. Testing of the thermal performance of the house occurred for a limited period during June 2010. Performance data have demonstrated that the combination of a high-performance building envelope and PDEC provided comfortable conditions inside the house over a period of increasingly warm weather. Estimates of the cooling achieved, based on the measured results, were compared with the energy required by the system to derive an indicative range of coefficient of performance (CoP) values under varying ambient conditions. The results suggest that PDEC can deliver significant energy savings and achieve comfortable thermal conditions without the need for additional mechanical cooling. This technique may therefore have wider relevance to housing in central and southern Spain, and other hot, dry regions of the world.
A design is proposed to improve the performance of wind towers (or Baud-Geers) for natural ventilation and passive cooling. Under similar climatological and design conditions, the new design is capable of delivering air to the building at higher flow rates. It can also cool the air evaporatively to lower temperatures. Higher airflow rates and the evaporative cooling capability of the new Baud-Geer design can be fully utilized at nigh in summer to cool the building mass to lower temperatures.Momentum, mass and energy analyses are carried out for the proposed design. The results are presented in graphical forms which may be used as guidelines for employing the design for specific applications in the hot, arid areas of the world. An example is worked out to show the use of the results.
This volume presents insights into the indigenous architectural forms in hot arid climates. The author presents his extensive research on climate control, particularly in the Middle East, to demonstrate the advantages of many locally available building materials and traditional building methods. He suggests improved uses of natural energy that can bridge the gap between traditional achievements and modern needs. He argues that various architectural forms in these climates have evolved intuitively from scientifically valid concepts. Such forms combine comfort and beauty, social and physical functionality. He discusses that in substituting modern materials, architects sometimes have ignored the environmental context of traditional architecture. As a result, individuals may find themselves physically and psychologically uncomfortable in modern structures. His approach, informed by a sensitive humanism, demonstrates the ways in which traditional architectural forms can be of use in solving problems facing contemporary architecture, in particular the critical housing situation in the Third World.
Air conditioning is now recognized as a significant factor in global
warming and climate change. In the search for alternatives, passive
downdraught evaporative cooling (PDEC) is proving to be both
technically and economically viable in different parts of the world.
Brian Ford describes the principles and current practice of this
innovative approach to cooling in the hot dry regions of the world.