Many modern office buildings have highly glazed facades. Their energy efficiency and indoor climateis, however, being questioned. Therefore more and more of these buildings are being built with doubleskin facades, which can provide: a thermal buffer zone, energy savings, wind protection with openwindows, fire protection, aesthetics, solar preheating of ventilation air, sound protection, pollutantprotection with open windows, nocturnal cooling and a site for incorporation of PV cells.

The objective of the paper is to present a new educational concept for improving the accessibility towhole building Heat, Air & Moisture (HAM) simulation models developed in the simulation environmentHAMLab. We provided a library of buildings, including the default performances of the buildingsthemselves, on a website. Students can select the most appropriate building, adapt the inputparameters, simulate and evaluate the results. In case a higher resolution is required, two stepsexplain how to implement respectively advanced controllers and HAM details.

The aim of the Pythagoras project is the development and assessment of Greek national trainingmaterial in the sector of indoor environmental quality. The need for education in this specific sector isdictated by the significant indoor environment deterioration and associated health hazards, which arecaused by low ventilation levels, combined with the use of many modern building materials thataggravate pollutants emissions.

The building sector constitutes approximately the 40% of the total energy consumption in EU. TheDirective 2002/91/EC provides a precise legislative framework for improving the energy performanceof the built environment. [1]It was adopted on December 2002 and entered into force in January 2003. According to the article 15of this Directive all member states have a time period of three years (till January 2006) to implementthe Directive in their own countries.

This paper describes an educational tool developed at LASH ENTPE (France) laboratory. Theobjective of this tool, called SIMUBEMS, is to familiarize ENTPE students with control techniques andallows performing simulations in order to test heating and ventilation control strategies.An office building equipped with an HVAC system has been used to carry out the simulations. Themodelled zone is 9 m long, 6 m large and 2.5 m height and has large glazed faade.

Denmark has long experience with mandatory labelling of existing buildings. In the implementation ofthe new labelling scheme in relation to the Energy in Building Performance Directive special focus hasbeen on optimizing the actually realised energy savings.

It is often claimed that energy is consumed; this is not only done in everyday conversation but also inscientific discussions associated with energy and environmental issues. This claim conflicts with thefirst law of thermodynamics stating that the total amount of energy is conserved, even though forms ofenergy may change from one to another.

This paper outlines the applicability of the “exergy” concept to describe the built environment for a better futuristic view of heating and cooling systems to be developed. We briefly review the fundamental laws of thermodynamics aiming at the derivation

This paper summarises the work of the LowEx co-operation /1/. The aim was to promote rational use ofenergy by encouraging the use of low temperature heating systems and high temperature cooling systems ofbuildings. These systems can use a variety of fuels and renewable energy sources. Energy is used efficientlywhile providing a comfortable indoor climate. Exergy defines the quality of energy and is a concept fordesigning and assessing different heating and cooling systems. Application of exergy analysis into buildingshas not been common before.

It is often claimed that energy is consumed, not only in everyday conversation but also in scientificdiscussions associated with energy and environmental issues. This claim conflicts with the first law ofthermodynamics stating that the total amount of energy is conserved, even though forms of energymay change from one to another.