The performance of a passive cooling system was evaluated as part of design works for the project of an auditorium. The passive cooling system uses the atmosphere as natural heat sink and incorporates a solar chimney together with an evaporative cooling tower. The natural ventilation is enhanced with the help of the solar chimney and fresh air is cooled down by passive downdraught evaporative cooling. The application of this system to the acclimatization of an auditorium was evaluated.

This paper concentrates on the results of sustainability caused by climatic elements in Iranian traditional architecture in Hot-Humid regions. In a vast country such as Iran, with different climatic zone, traditional builders have presented a series of logical solutions for human comfort. The aim of this research is to demonstrate traditional architecture in Mild-Humid climate of Iran as a sample of sustainable architecture. Sustainability in architecture means conserving constructions for the future, in terms of physical durability planet protect conserving on energy resources.

The Air Infiltration and Ventilation Centre is operated under Annex V of the Energy Conservation in Buildings and Community Systems implementing agreement of the International Energy Agency. The primary objective of the AIVC is to provide a high quality international technical and information forum covering the areas of ventilation and air infiltration in the built environment with respect to efficient energy use, good indoor air quality and thermal

European Directive for Energy Performance of Buildings was approved in the beginning of 2003. The transition period is 3-6 years depending of the article. European Standardisation Organisation (CEN) has drafted several standards to help the member countries implementing the directive. One of these is the Criteria for the indoor environment including thermal, indoor air quality (ventilation) light and noise. The standard specifies design values of indoor environment, values to be used in energy calculations, and methods how to verify the specified indoor environment in the buildings.

This project is intended to supply information to architects and engineers throughout Europe to support the Energy Directive on Buildings through providing design and engineering details of high quality, low energy consumption public buildings throughout the EU. Buildings will be chosen from the participating countries (UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) as well as from other European countries in different climatic zones. In total this means 25 buildings.

Sunlight is necessary for life. Managing sunlight is necessary to achieve a level of comfort for living. Radiation transfer through glazing has an impact on costs for heating, cooling and lighting in a building and on environment. The energy that is gained or lost may be solar or thermal energy. Glazing materials are known to respond differently to these two types of energy. This paper provides a comfortable choice in solar design by providing an understanding of solar energy and the tools for managing the amount and type of sunlight permitted through glazing systems.

Heat island is a very well documented climatic phenomenon that has an important energy and environmental impact in the urban environment. The main energy problems are related to the important increase of the energy consumption for cooling purposes as well as to the important increase of the peak electricity load. Heat island in Athens, Greece, is measured during the last decade and its energy impact is calculated in details. The aim of the present paper is to estimate the direct and indirect environmental impact of the heat island effect in Athens.

A well-known parameter in the calculation of solar gains for the heating requirements is the utilization factor concept. This parameter allows the assessment of the heating requirements diminishment due to the contribution of the solar gains, and it can be easily calculated as a function of the building inertia, and the ratio between solar gains to losses. The present paper analyses the utilization factor equation in order to obtain the relations among all the involved variables. Thus, using the transfer function method, a new and realistic utilization factor equation is obtained.

The building sector represents a great percentage of the total consumption of energy of a country, and of this, most is due to the existing buildings. The great number of existing buildings in comparison with the new buildings, and the worst constructive quality in the first ones, they explain the previous asseveration. It is, therefore, of a primordial importance, to promote measures guided to limit the energy consumption in these buildings, what can be obtained through the rehabilitation of the same ones.

A low energy technique for heat removal from the interior of a building under summer conditions is the employ of natural ventilation. There are several ways to promote this ventilation. The use of Trombe walls to obtain this objective is studied in the present work, with the aid of a combined mathematicaldifferences finites model. This is a transient model developed to take into account the thermal inertia of the wall and that can be easily applicable to a particular Trombe wall to estimate its behaviour.