The buildings sector offers the greatest potential for cost-effective reductions in greenhouse gasemissions out of all the sectors examined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.However that potential was based purely on technical measures applied to existing buildings and newconstruction. It is becoming increasingly clear that non-technical options involving building occupantcomfort, culture and behaviour will also need to be implemented in order to stabilise atmosphericconcentrations of CO2 within a useful timeframe.

When a building is used only for intermittent occupancy, continuous operation of ventilation system isnot necessary for achieving good indoor air quality during the occupation periods. Such buildings havea great energy saving potential which is not harnessed enough yet. Indeed, energy loss can be avoidedby promoting natural means and managing mechanical ones.

In hot and humid climates, desiccant air-conditioning systems have been suggested as suitable forimproving Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). Generally as dehumidification devices, various types of silica gelrotor have been used to control humidity.

Recently, products of chemical reaction have been at issue as the topic of research on Indoor AirQuality. In this study, the emission mechanism of 2-ethyl-1-hexanol (2E1H) is studied. It has beenreported that 2E1H at high concentrations is measured in indoor air over the long term. The emissionmechanism for 2E1H is considered that water with high pH in concrete slabs and self-leveling sub-floormaterial reacts to di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) in PVC flooring and compounds containing the2-ethyl-1-hexyl group in the adhesive.

Architectural design is becoming each day a more complex process while it seeks to embrace thevarious aspects of sustainability. The way how the buildings are affected by their own shape andmaterials, how the urban environment is affected by it and how this will affect the building, becomes acritical issue of the design process for sustainable architecture. The architectural design processshould be dynamic and look holistically at all building technologies and systems, including the urbandimension.

District cooling system (DCS) is a mass-scale production of chilled water generated at a central andremote chiller plant. Through an underground piping network, the chilled water is delivered to serve agroup of consumer buildings in a district area. DCS can offer both economical and environmentalbenefits. Because of the substantial capital investment and running energy involved, an optimal designof the distribution piping network is one of the crucial factors for successful implementation of thedistrict cooling scheme.

University dormitory is a kind of representative building in which central heating is supplied. The rooms are in simple types and the students’ activity schedule is quite steady, which makes dormitory room to be an appropriate place for field survey. This

Due to a variety of influence factors, outside dry-bulb temperature takes on a systematic and randomfluctuation. If a deterministic model is used to forecast the dry-bulb temperature, the predicted resultoften has a rough accuracy. Neural network can learn the internal regularity of the sample data bysample training; therefore it has very much adaptability and advantage in the aspects of forecast.The influence factors of outside dry-bulb temperature exist difference in the daytime and the nighttime,which makes the fluctuant regularity of outside dry-bulb temperature inconsistent.

This paper discusses how the consumption pattern of occupants and architectural design of buildingsaffect the building energy consumption. An overview of the building energy consumptions in Hong Kongis presented. Electricity consumption data in Hong Kong may have resulted in various indications andestimates of the inevitable growth in electricity demand. The growth rate varies in different sectors anddepends on the end-use pattern together with the economic activity. The increasing standard of livingcauses greater need of resources and sometimes may lead to abusive consumptions.

The energy performance of solar-control film on single window glass is analyzed through in-siteexperiment measurement. The solar optical properties and the heat transfer characteristics of theglazing with solar-control film are discussed in detail. An experiment was carried out to compare theenergy consumption and day lighting level between two hotel guest rooms with and without solarcontrolfilm. The theoretical and experimental results have a good agreement in the energy saved bysolar-control film.