Electrical energy consumption in the northwest region of the Mexican Republic during the summer, is the highest of the country, due mainly to the use of mechanical refrigeration systems that are used to condition the interior of the housing and other buildings as a rule. It is shown that it is possible to condition the interior of a house by passive means in a hot dry climate during the summer, through the use of massive walls, evaporative cooling and solar radiation shield systems on the roof.

Currently, in the design of new buildings and retrofit of old buildings, attention is turning towards a more integral energy design with focus not only on thermal insulation and airtightness but also on optimal use of sustainable technologies such as natural ventilation. There is a tendency for buildings to be designed in order to utilise the outdoor environment to create an acceptable indoor environment, whenever it is beneficial. Passive ventilation and natural cooling are sustainable energy efficient and clean technologies.

The new office building of the Ministry of Transport at Terneuzen in the Netherlands is a sustainable and energy efficient building with a good indoor environment. The building is constructed of sustainable materials, well insulated, has a good daylight situation and is equipped with a minimum of building services. Passive and natural sources have been utilised as much as possible. An advanced natural ventilation system provides the fresh air and controls the thermal comfort.

Above-ground multi-level car parks in large shopping centres are highly amenable to hybrid ventilation applications, particularly those centres with retail shops at the lower levels and car parks at the higher levels. The higher level car parks allow the benefit of higher wind velocity and better dissipation of car exhaust emissions than at ground level; at the same time, larger perimeter wall opening area can be used without affecting the aesthetic feature of the building.

In this paper, a full-scale test house constructed in Tohoku University, Japan and some kinds of residential ventilation systems including hybrid ventilation within it is described firstly, and then the ventilation systems' performance is evaluated by field studies and numerical simulations.

Despite a great accumulation of empirical information on the passive performance of houses for either free-running or conditioned modes, very little work has been done on the thermal performance of buildings that can operate with a mixed-running strategy in warm-humid climates. Buildings with such design features would be able to balance the needs for comfort, privacy, energy efficiency during different periods of the year.

The aim of this paper is to identify the weak points in nowadays ventilation installations in Belgium and to discuss energy performance approach of buildings as a way to solve many of the ventilation related problems.

Three hybrid ventilation concepts are described: alternate use of natural and mechanical ventilation; fan assisted natural ventilation; stack and wind supported mechanical ventilation. The concepts described comprise some newly constructed rather advanced buildings but also some existing more traditional type buildings. All buildings with hybrid systems up till now are far from what might be the optimum solution. There is a knowledge gap especially on dimensioning and control of hybrid ventilation systems.

To investigate the possibility of indoor air quality (IAQ) control by hybrid energy saving ventilation with an air cleaner using the sorption effect of building materials, this paper describes the identification to estimate the parameters related to the sink effect of materials, the concept of the novel air cleaner, and the performance evaluation of IAQ control for a house installed with the hybrid ventilation system to remove chemical contaminants by computer simulation.

This paper points out that the operation and management of the system for indoor air quality (IAQ) is more important than the design of air conditioning system. It is a widespread practice that for the sake of saving energy and operating expense, many building owners change the system's installations and operating manners of fresh air system of air conditioning. Almost all the building owners neglect the maintenance and management of air conditioning system. Those behaviours lead to seriously poor IAQ.