Overview of the programme, covers opportunities for solar energy in the 21st century, advancing solar building technologies, solar low energy buildings, and the future.

The paper discusses the suitability of the sunken courtyard concept in the desert climate using Kuwait as a case study. It investigates three issues related to the concept: its ability to modify the harsh climate and to reduce the energy consumption, its  constrnction costs compared to aboveground building, and the occupants' attitude towards living underground. The results are shown to be all positive and will be significant to the policy-makers, designers, and homeowners.

A field study of the thermal comfort of workers in natural ventilated office buildings in Oxford and Aberdeen, UK, was carried out which included information about use of building controls. The data were analysed to explore that what effect the outdoor temperature has on the indoor temperature and how this is affected by occupants' use of environmental controls during the peak summer (June-August). The proportion of subjects using a control was related to indoor and outdoor temperatures to demonstrate the size of the effect.

Perceived air quality, Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) symptoms and productivity were studied in an existing office in which the air pollution level could be modified by introducing or removing a pollution source. This reversible intervention allowed the space to be classified as either non-low-polluting or low-polluting, as specified in the new European design criteria ·for the indoor environment CEN CR 1752 (1998). The pollution source was a 20-year-old used carpet which was introduced on a rack behind a screen so that it was invisible to the occupants.

The objective of this study was to test a new office space where the environmental conditions could be well controlled- a "field laboratory", located at Mid Sweden University in 6stersund. To test the laboratory, the same experiment that had been carried out earlier at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) was repeated. A further objective was to test whether the earlier results from DTU showing a negative impact of increased indoor air pollution on perceived air quality, Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) symptoms and performance could be repeated.

The results of three independent studies involving 90 subjects, and using similar procedures and blind exposures have shown that increasing air quality (by decreasing the pollution load or by increasing the ventilation rate, with otherwise constant indoor climate conditions) can improve the performance of simulated office work (text typing, addition and proof-reading). An analysis of the combined data from these studies is presented to establish the relationship between air quality and performance in offices.

The developing trend that Building Regulations in the future will be applied to buildings in use rather than to their design intent on paper has many important implications. It will lead to pressure testing of new buildings to ensure air tightness, low energy bills and the associated absence of draughts. Importantly, it means that for the first time, the ventilation air will enter the building through the air inlet ductwork. This offers the designers the opportunity to control the indoor environment to create refreshing comfortable climate while retaining low energy use.