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Natural ventilation strategies for indoor thermal comfort in Mediterranean apartments

  • Research Article
  • Indoor/Outdoor Airflow and Air Quality
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Abstract

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.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil and Building Engineering, Loughborough University, Loughborough, LE11 3TU, UK

    Eftychia Spentzou & Malcolm J. Cook

  2. Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, University of Bath, Bath, UK

    Stephen Emmitt

Authors
  1. Eftychia Spentzou
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  2. Malcolm J. Cook
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  3. Stephen Emmitt
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Correspondence to Eftychia Spentzou.

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Spentzou, E., Cook, M.J. & Emmitt, S. Natural ventilation strategies for indoor thermal comfort in Mediterranean apartments. Build. Simul. 11, 175–191 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-017-0380-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-017-0380-1

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