The possibility of unacceptable internal air pollution levels can cause concern at the design stage given the potential for cross contamination between building exhausts and ventilation intakes is there. The complexity of airflows around buildings, however, makes it extremely difficult to predict the contamination levels at the intake locations. This paper reports a wind tunnel technique using a model of a proposed building to determine the pollutant levels expected at various inlet locations due to the re-ingestion of noxious emissions from its two stacks.

Carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and particulate matter (PM) are harmful air pollutants that pose significant short- and long-term health risks. Emitted from coal-fired power plants, vehicle exhaust pipes, and other combustion sources, they’re among six primary pollutants monitored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through the Clean Air Act. These same pollutants are also some of the most common contributors to unhealthy air inside U.S. homes, due in part to a ubiquitous and possibly surprising activity: cooking.

Outdoor thermal condition is one of the important factors for people’s exposure time. This article is the results of a field study had been done in the mid winter 2010 – 2011 in Sheffield, UK. The aim is to find out the relationship between climatic condition, architectural design and peoples behavior. Two outdoor thermal indices that are appropriate for cold condition are used to explain the cold stress situation. To have the related information, the weather data is collected by a mobile Kestrel weather station that is designed for outdoor events.

According to an advancement of exergy research in relations to thermal comfort and built environment for the last fifteen years, the availability of “warm” or “cool” radiant exergy emitted by the interior surfaces of building envelope systems is crucially important in providing building occupants with adaptive opportunity for thermal comfort both in summer and in winter. This paper demonstrates some numerical examples showing how the thermal performance of window systems affects the availability of “warm” and “cool” radiant exergies.

This paper presents an ideal and worst case scenario approach for occupancy modelling in early design stages which can be used in building simulation. It defines the range of impact that occupant behaviour can have on comfort and energy performance in buildings, and can thus contribute to the decision making of architectural projects in early design stages.  

The low energy retrofit of the UK existing building stock is an urgent matter after the government’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 80% until 2050.

The present work proposed a method to determine time period of thermal adaption of occupants in naturally ventilated building, based on the relationship between their neutral temperatures and running mean outdoor air temperature. Based on the data of the field investigation, the subjects’ time period of thermal adaption was obtained with the proposed method. The result revealed that the subjects needed to take 4.25 days to fully adapt to a step-change in outdoor air temperature.

This lifelong interaction between the cognitive and physical realms has existed overtime. During the evolution of design solutions inhabitants adapted form and materials to the conditions of nature; working with natural forms and climatic cycles rather than considering forces as obstacles to overcome has hermeneutic and practical values; used by intentional makers. The cultural identity in the inhabitant made the home, and then the process of home-making ‘made’ the inhabitant; a common reward.

Thermal comfort study has been conducted in two Jakarta’s private universities, namely Tarumanagara University (Untar) and Mercu Buana University (UMB). Ninety architecture students involved in this study, collecting 900 thermal votes from various indoor temperature conditions. Comparing to the previous study done in Jakarta in 1993 the result of this study was quite different, subjects were comfortable in much lower temperature. Even when compared with the previous study in Bandung with a lower outdoor temperature, subjects’ comfort temperature in this study was about similar..

Through history; a large body of research has found a relationship between the IEQ and the recovery of patients in healthcare facilities. IEQ factors include natural ventilation, daylighting, acoustics, materials off gassing, etc... This research is to identify the guidelines to healthy daylighting in hospital buildings. Research methods include grounded theory finding through intensive literature review and analysis of successful international examples.