Termodeck's passive cooling system of indoor climate control uses hollowed-out concrete slabs through which room air is circulated. During the summer, the fan runs at night, too, passing cool air over the slabs to ensure the temperature remains cool for the day ahead. Andy Cook reports.

This paper is concerned with aspects of thermal comfort which are particularly relevant to passive cooling. A fundamental difference between cooling in a warm climate and heating in a cool climate is recognised due to the relationship between the physiological neutral temperature and ambient heat sinks. The need for a comfort performance assessment of a building design is established. The notion of person cooling as distinct from space cooling justifies the need for a behavioural comfort model as distinct from a fixed state model.

This paper summarizes the results of an horizontal study on Passive and Hybrid Cooling for buildings, carried out by the authors, on behalf of the EEC Research Program "Building 2000" /1/. The state of the art of the strategies for the prevention of thermal gain is presented. Also the existing situation on the design tools and the computational methods regarding the Passive and Hybrid cooling techniques and components is analysed. Finally the data of several designed and constructed buildings in Europe using Passive and Hybrid cooling techniques and components are given and analysed.