The application of Environmental Design principles can substantially contribute in energy conserving in residential areas. People constitute an imponderable factor for the accomplishment of this target and it is very important to inquire the readiness of people to accept and adopt innovations in their lives in order to achieve energy saving. To investigate the social attitudes, a social research took place in Cyprus. This was attained by answering questionnaires which were applied in four social groups.

The potential for error when using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for investigating internal building airflows continues to be a critical issue in building simulation analysis. This topic is assessed in the current paper by examining the ability of a proprietary CFD code to simulate buoyancy and forced airflow regimes, typical of a naturally ventilated building. This issue is motivated by an ongoing research project, aimed at examining the relationship between external microclimate and internal building comfort, where CFD constitutes a major analytical tool.

The objective of this study is to evaluate the potential of two inertial ventilation techniques (buried pipes and thermal phase-shifting) for passive cooling of buildings in Brazilian climates. Using EnergyPlus, a typical residential building was simulated in two locations (Sao Paulo and Florianopolis). Simulations consider 5 alternatives of passive cooling, combining different scenarios of controlled direct ventilation, buried pipes and thermal phase-shifting. Results show the potential of these techniques in freefloating as well as in air-conditioning mode.

The issue of this paper is to present theoretical results for a solar chimney with thermal mass, where the glass surface is replaced by photovoltaic (PV) modules. A portion of the heat absorbed by the PV modules is dissipated to the air channel in convective form, and it exchanges radiation heat with the concrete wall. These cooling phenomena for the PV modules improve their efficiency with a lower working temperature. Both phenomena are heating process to the air and the concrete wall, that produce natural ventilation. The solar chimney is supposed to be isolated from any building.

A number of studies have examined the potential of using natural ventilation as a passive cooling system and comfort under warm conditions. Tanabe and Karma (1994) conducted an experimental work at 50% RH under different level of air speed. They found preferred speed at 28C to be 1.0 m/s, at 29.6 C, 1.2 m/s and at 31.3C, 1.6 m/s. Although traditional architecture of Iran has a very good background in terms of passive building design strategies for achieving comfort condition, however, they are mostly ignored and people are concerned with the rising costs of electricity and fuel.

The performance of natural, mechanical and hybrid ventilation systems was monitored, using the tracer gas decay method, in three typical apartment buildings located in two street canyons, during summer period 2002 in Athens. The multi-zone methodology has been adopted based on the mass balance of two tracer gases (N2O and SF6) to define the air change rates. The air-exchange efficiency was determined for different ventilation systems, on the basis of the room mean age of air.

The objective of this paper is to show the importance of the solar passive design principles in Antonio Gaudi’s Architectural Work from the analysis of one of his domestic buildings constructed in Barcelona in the turn of the XX century: The Batlló House.

In order to perform detailed evaluation on the applicability of local dynamic similarity concept, which is described in Part 1, wind tunnel experiment was conducted under some conditions where the opening positions and the arrangement of buildings were changed in more complicated manner. As a result, it has been found that the discharge coefficient Cd can be predicted accurately from PR* for the most of opening positions, even if the approaching flow angle is varied or another building is standing near the opening.

This paper presents some results of the research project "Domestic Violence and Architectural Space", sponsored by several Mexican Governmental Offices and Citizen Organizations. One of the purposes of this project was to find the probable correlation between several physical characteristics of houses and violent behavior of their inhabitants. In this paper we report the results of the indoor climate exclusively.

Two approaches have been tested for cooling oil in a given location to temperatures well below the "normal" temperatures in that location. The first approach has been tested in Sde Boqer Campus, in the Israeli Negev desert. The soil was covered with a layer of pebbles, about 10. cm. thick, and watered in the mornings. The second approach was tested at A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida. Temperature measurements were taken of moist soil under a wooden shack on stilts, about 60 cm above the ground. Thus the soil under it was permanently shaded.