The work in progress of an Expert system called ISOLDE that is being prepared in a specific Tusk of the International Energy Agency is presented. This program will give intelligent user support on energy use and thermal comfort during the design process of commercial buildings through general advices, simplified methods, detailed simulations. In particular the paper focuses on the passive cooling approach covered by this tool.
The paper is structured in four sections. The introduction sets the notion of solar control as a fundamental issue in deciding the priorities of climate-responsive design for different building types and locations in Europe. The second section presents an overview of application contexts and means of solar control, and discusses design priorities and threshold conditions for different space functions and environmental design requirements.
The application of computer tools in construction is set for a revolution as integrated software packages come close to fruition. But there are barriers to the increased use of electronic design tools, notably worries over validation, the skills needed both in the design studio and on site and the quality assurance issues of correctly defining product elements and the design criteria. Over the next three articles, we examine the potential for using integrated computer design tools.
The BRE has carried out monitoring tests to measure the winter ventilation performance of the Portland Building, the recentlycompleted low energy building at the University of Portsmouth
The objective of this one-day seminar was to address the issues of design and provision of low energy ventilation strategies for non-domestic buildings located in urban and city centres where external air and noise pollution may be of prime concern. Current concerns about energy usage and C02 emissions have led to an increasing number of buildings, both new builds and major refurbishments, employing low-energy ventilation strategies such as natural or fan-assisted ventilation.
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