Highly glazed buildings are often considered to be airy, light and transparent with more access to daylight. Their performance, however, regarding to energy use and thermal comfort issues is often questioned. Passive solar systems such as Double Skin Faades are likely to improve the overall building performance if integratedproperly. This article deals with energy and indoor climate simulations of double skin office buildings in Sweden using a dynamic energy simulation tool.

Nightcooling is worldwide promoted as an effective tool to reduce cooling demands. However, it is clear that as long as the potential of nightcooling is not standardintegrated into energy performance calculations of buildings, its application will be strongly hampered. Firstly, practical experiences with nightcooling in an office are discussed. Secondly, it is found that of the countries analysed, only in the French energy performancelegislation (RT2005) the effect of a nightcooling system can be taken into account without the need of the principle of equivalence.

This paper presents a comparison of the characteristics of the energy demand for London, UK and Athens, Greece and explores its relationship with both climate and non-climate related factors. Year-to-year trends for both cities are identified, associated mainly with economic, social and demographic factors. In addition, several other effects such as weekly and holiday effects, unrelated to weather conditions are detected and are examined in comparison for the two cities.

Nowadays in view of the growing expectation of qualityurban spaces, planners, architects and developers concern about urban microclimate in the process of urban development. Under this context, the concept of urban climatic map (UCMap) has been introduced. UCMap is a tool for translating climatic knowledge into urban planning process. It can help urban planning professionals to understand and evaluate the effect of urban climatic issues on planning decision.

This paper describes the current Welsh housing stock with a view to assessing the range of existing propertiesin terms of age, construction type and the implicationsfor mechanical heating and cooling of spaces. This work forms part of a larger project that will also involve the development of a series of computer models based on these findings, as well as the design, installation and performance monitoring of a domestic scale solar absorptioncooling system.

This paper describes an educational and experimental tool developed under LabVIEW environment at LASH/DGCB (France) laboratory of ENTPE. The objective of this tool is to make students sensitive with HVAC equipments, measurements, heat recovery, and regulation techniques in order to expand and test heating, cooling and ventilation control strategies. A large room of the Buildings Sciences Laboratory (LASH) is equipped with balanced mechanical ventilation and a global control/data acquisition system.

This paper outlines the need to increase the resilience of hospital buildings in the face of three growing perils, climate change, insecurity of energy supplies and the resulting potential for epidemics and pandemics. It is argued that there has been a trend to poorer building design and construction standards resulting in the increase in fossil fuel use to maintain adequate indoor temperatures. As extreme climate events increase in number and intensity, and are increasingly associated with power failures, the role of buildings becomes more central to our comfortable survival.

PREA is a joint project between four European Universitiesand three African Universities as well as the InternationalSolar Energy Society (ISES), an international NGO, that promotes renewable energy.

In urban canyons where, apartment buildings can be beneficial in terms of their close proximity to offices, shops etc, causing less traffic congestion and pollution, saving fuel costs and bringing people in close proximity to city centres. At the same time trying to accommodate people in city centres, leads to the development of congested and confined narrow deep apartments which have to be mechanically ventilated and artificially lit. To reduce costs, in 1962 designers began building narrow structures with light curtain walls and thin frames to increase daylight and natural ventilation.

The Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) is an importantdeterminant in the comfort and hence productivity of workers in office buildings, and a number of studieshave been undertaken in the Western world which shows this. This paper explores the Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) in six office buildings in Tehran (Iran) with particular attention to thermal comfort.