The main design strategies when dealing with cooling are well known by now. The paper will not present options one by one, but will show how each one has been used as a starting point of design in recent projects.

The aim of this paper is to confront the designers practice knowledge on the behavior of natural ventilation due to wind action in housing buildings with complex internal partitions against experimental analogical airflow visualization. The methodology consisted of a survey with a group of architects, followed by experimental airflow visualization in physical scale models of a housing building, developed with a water table. The results from the survey showed that the architects were divided regarding the best and worst natural ventilation performance among the tested housing units.

Human organism is probably the most perfect example of thermal behavior, adaptation to different climatic conditions, and a way of keeping it’s temperature constant, which is existent in nature. Observing various buildings, their thermal characteristics,

Numerical simulations and computational fluid dynamics can be usefully integrated with architectural modeling, providing designers with a powerful single CFD based architectural modeling and design framework. This framework can be interfaced with the building thermal performance modeling, integrating further fully thermal and flow domains within the architectural modeling.

This paper presents the results of a comparative study aiming to investigate the effect of reflective coatings on lowering surface temperatures of buildings and other surfaces of the urban environment, and thus test their suitability to lower ambient temperatures and fight the heat island effect. In total, 14 types of reflective coatings on surfaces of the urban environment were studied, from August to October 2004.

Techniques and technologies for use in designing, constructing and operating intelligent buildings are well known or available on the market and many intelligent buildings have been built. However, just how intelligent these buildings actually are in comparison to conventional buildings is often a question. Due to the lack of a commonly accepted method and pertinent supporting data, the assessment of the overall performance of intelligent buildings cannot be carried out.

Satellite images in the thermal infrared can be used for assessing the thermal urban environment as well as for defining heat islands in urban areas. In this paper, the thermal environment of major cities in Greece (Athens, Thessaloniki, Patra, Volos and Heraklion) is examined by using satellite images provided by the Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) sensor on board Landsat 7 platform corresponding to daytime and warm period, when the surface urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon is best observed.

A common rule of thumb in solar applications is that maximum solar input on a flat collector comes when facing towards the equator at a slope equal to the locations latitude. Strict adherence to this rule leads frequently to layouts of questionable aesthetics, with the solar element detached from the geometry of the building in the name of optimum performance. An analytical study of solar irradiation on a plane as a function of its orientation and slope has shown that this rule can be disregarded to certain extends at a negligible energy shortfall.

This paper concentrates on the results of sustainability caused by natural cooling systems in Iranian traditional architecture of hot-arid regions. Sustainability in architecture means conserving constructions for the future, in terms of physical durability planet protect conserving on energy resources. In this case, it seems that sustainability would be based on the introduction productive models in which available materials and resources are used more efficiently, rather than being ignored.

Traditionally, a home for the elderly aimed exclusively at the accommodation and care of people of the 3rd and 4th age. In a modern and continuously evolving society, how this can remain stagnant? This design, which was presented as a diploma design work at the Architecture Department of the University of Patras, constitutes a new idea, a revision and redefinition of the meaning of a home for the elderly. A strong emphasis is placed on modern way of life and how this can influence the needs of old people and be influenced by them.