The most critical aspect of the operation of any air-distribution system is the way that conditioned air is delivered to the occupied space, says Paul Jones         

Occupant-controlled heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems allow inhabitants of open-plan spaces some degree of control over their immediate microclimate. Typically, cooled air is supplied at floor or desktop levels. The amount and direction of air flow is under occupant control. Productivity increases have been attributed to this form of control. This paper proposes a simplified model of the thermal environment created by an occupant-controlled HV AC system and the behavior of the occupants within it.

New office buildings in Spain are nearly always designed to be air conditioned. The architect Emilio Miguel Mitre Associates (EMMA) has designed a building which avoids air conditioning, thereby reducing energy demand. The design uses the principles of high thermal mass combined with night ventilation, reduction of solar gain during the summer months, high levels of insulation, evaporative cooling, and buried pipes to provide cooling when the external temperature rises above 30°C.

The high environmental_ quality of the buildings in the south of France requires a good control of the summer thermal comfort. For economical and ecological reasons this purpose must be reached essentially by architectural design. In the program "Haute Qualite Environnementale" of the "Plan-Construction". 58 collective housings have been built in Nice in a dense urban zone with a principal consideration to the summer comfort, specially to allow a good transversal ventilation in the moderate hot and humid climate of this city.

This paper describes and discusses the energy saving design features of the Learning Resources Centre at Anglia Polytechnic University. As part of the University's policy on environmental conservation, the design brief for this new Queen's Building specified a low energy passive design solution. The building, which has been occupied since September 1994, was awarded a THERMIE grant to demonstrate a 50% reduction in the annual energy related carbon dioxide emissions for a building of this type.