English

Despite of Brazil not being among the major world energy consumers, the consumption of electricity has significantly increased in the last years. The National Energy Balance of 2005, published by the Brazilian Ministry of Energy, showed that buildings consume 45% of the electric energy generated in the country. Standards and codes on energy efficiency can represent 12% of energy consumption savings in twenty years for developing countries according to a global survey developed by Duffie (1996).

The aim of this paper was to study the natural ventilation by the stack effect in a reduced model of a building to obtain the night ventilation. A vessel, with double wall, built using glass and metal and filled with water worked as a chimney. It was installed in a building with reduced scale (scale 5:1). Due to the high specific heat of the water, after its heating, a difference of the air temperature in a great part of the night is produced in the inside of the chimney. This way, the natural ventilation of the internal environment is obtained.

This paper will synopsize the results of a research on energy-conscious architectural elements and principles used throughout the history. The selected case studies were classified into historical eras regardless of their climatic or cultural diversity and were investigated by the date of construction, ranging from prehistoric to the current vernacular buildings, and they were cross-referenced and compared to each other. The analysis of the cases demonstrates similarity and some contrast in elements and principles, differing in history and culture but being similar in climate.

This paper presents the preliminary findings from the first stage of a physical survey and modelling Case Study conducted to obtain Modelled and Actual Energy Consumption Profiles for a UK multi-storey mixed use educational building. The purpose of the study is to provide an insight into how accurately current models and software can predict the actual energy consumption in such a building, with a view to informing the development of Operational and Asset Ratings for Buildings in the EU as part of the EPBD Article 7 requirements.

It is of significant importance, for the health of building residents and the protection of the natural environment, to attain conditions of thermal comfort within buildings and reduce their energy demands for cooling or heating. In order to set up a sustainable built environment and prevent the waste of natural resources, a serious consideration of several vital factors is essential. These factors mainly concern the outdoor environment, the envelope surfaces and the indoor environment of buildings.

So-called energy saving measures have been implementedin new and existing buildings over the last years so that the energy demand in those buildings should have decreased significantly. But the fact is, for examplelooking at the annual rate of energy use in Germany,that the demand does not necessarily decrease as ex- pected. There seem to be other factors counteractingthe technical progress. One of those factors has to be found in the user behavior in buildings.

Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) is a platform developedin recent years to allow the systematic study of buildings once occupied, so that lessons may be learnt that will improve future design. The tools employed in POE include plan analysis, monitoring of Indoor Environmentand Air Quality (IEQ, IAQ) and thermal performance, and surveys including walk-through, observations,and user satisfaction questionnaires.

To the greatest degree modern showed requirements are answered with characteristics of military buildings and constructions on the basis of collapsible constructive system Module which allows to form complexes of inhabited,industrial, public, warehouse and special purpose of any capacity for various climatic conditions.

The concepts of design that must be attended, especially in developing countries, are social and cultural concerns, as well as questions of environmental comfort and sustainability.The aspects of building constructions economicand technological viability and function also have continual importance. Contemporary architecture and its urban setting have exerted specific pressures on the design process, and this in turn on formal educationof professionals. Design education has however on the whole not found appropriate models to attend to the complexity of all these questions.

This paper presents a design education experience, where the concepts of bioclimatic architecture were applied in a studio environment of the Architecture Course of UNICAMPin Campinas, Brazil. At the first PALENC 2005 Conference the authors of this paper presented a teaching experience with results that indicated the need for new ways of bringing the feelings of comfort close to the studiodesign discussions.