Resilience of naturally ventilated buildings to climate change: advanced natural ventilation and hospital wards

Lomas, K; Ji, Y

Abstract

Naturally ventilated buildings have a key role to play mitigating climate change. The predicted indoor
temperatures in spaces with simple single-sided natural ventilation (SNV) are compared with those in
spaces conditioned using a form of edge in, edge out advanced natural ventilation (ANV) for various UK
locations. A criterion, for use in conjunction with the BSEN15251 adaptive thermal comfort method, is
proposed for determining when the risk of overheating, both now and in the future, might be deemed
unacceptable. The work is presented in the context building new, and refurbishing existing, healthcare
buildings and in particular hospital wards. The spaces conditioned using the ANV strategy were much
more resilient to increases in both internal heat gains and climatic warming than spaces with SNV. The
ANV strategy used less energy, and emitted less CO2 than conventional, mechanically ventilated (MV)
alternatives. In a warming world, the ‘life-expectancy’ of passively cooled buildings can be substantially
influenced by the internal heat gains. Therefore, resilience to climate change, susceptibility to internal
heat gains and the impact of future heat waves, should be an integral part of any new building or building
refurbishment design process.

Citation

Lomas, K., & Ji, Y. (2009). Resilience of naturally ventilated buildings to climate change: advanced natural ventilation and hospital wards. Energy and Buildings, 41(6), 629-653. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2009.01.001

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jun 1, 2009
• Deposit Date: May 27, 2011
• Journal: Energy and Buildings
• Print ISSN: 0378-7788
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 41
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 629-653
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2009.01.001
• Keywords: Natural ventilation, climate change, overheating, adaptive thermal comfort, health care, energy use
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2009.01.001