In many hot countries courtyard housing has evolved to help people achieve thermal comfort under hot conditions. Field studies have identified several thermal comfort adaptive actions that a person might take to achieve comfort. One of these actions is moving to a different thermal environment from the one causing the discomfort. The present paper examined how people adapt themselves thermally to achieve comfort in Iranian courtyard housing by moving between different spaces .in the house during the day.

Adequate ventilation and good air quality are essential for the comfort of occupants and productivity. Excessive ventilation however, may result in discomfort and high energy loss. A study was carried out to examine the influence of ventilation on indoor thermal conditions. The results show that ventilation has profound effect on lowering the indoor temperature, particularly the night time ventilation. Derived PMV is compared with actual votes (thermal sensation) and found that PMV is lower than actual votes.

For the academy Mont Cenis in Herne, Germany, a large microclimatic glass envelope (72m x 1.80m x 15m) with separate buildings inside the envelope, a concept for the natural ventilation was put up and a program for the control of the motor driven windows in the facades and in the roof was developed. To comprise the influence of wind speed, wind direction and the temperature difference between the envelope and the environment, numerous CFD-calculations were carried out on the base of a wind tunnel test and dynamic thermal calculations.

A computer model for predicting natural ventilation in buildings by solar chimney alone is presented. The simulations are based on the solution of the 3-D steady laminar conservation equations of mass, momentum and thermal energy with an appropriate set of boundary conditions. The equations are discretized using a finite difference formulation and solved by the Marker and Cell (MAC) scheme. Indoor airflow fields and temperature distributions are discussed with respect to human comfort at the living level, 1 m above floor.

This paper reports on an investigation of the use of an innovative earth tube ventilation system designed to improve the internal comfort conditions without the need for mechanical cooling. The numerical model and computer simulation developed for the prediction of air and soil temperatures has been made. The paper demonstrates the accuracy of this model and describes the results of analysis.

Natural cross ventilation to take advantage of air velocity in getting comfort, and solar protection, are the main design criteria traditionally proposed for warm humid climate. Usually, priority is given to natural ventilation related to design decisions such as orientation and windows (size, location and type). However, the wind is the most variable climatic factor, also affected by the urban context, the architectural shape and even, opening and closing windows and doors.

This paper presents a summary of calculations on the total cost effects of the remedial measures to reduce high summer time room temperatures in a hypothetical building. In the base case the room air temperature is too high during the summer, and causes a considerable reduction in the productivity. The following economical items are included in the study: first cost of the remedial measure, the effect of the measure in operating cost, particularly on energy consumption, and the effect on productivity.

Surveys in several office buildings have shown that crowded work places, job dissatisfaction and physical environment are the main factors affecting productivity. the data was produced and analyzed using occupational stress indicator in conjunction with the analytical hierarchical process. thermal problems, stuffiness, sick building syndrome factors and crowded work places were most frequent complaints. the results suggest that the productivity could be improved by 4 to 10% by improving the office environmental conditions.