Pilot houses with solar air heating systems were and are being erected in Hungary by the ''THERMO Ltd." Company. This project had two goals: to adapt the OM concept as a whole, including the thermal properties of the building itself, and to check the performance of the elements of the OM system applied on houses, built according to the local standards and practice. The experiences of a building, built according to the local standards and practice are briefly presented in the paper.
The paper is the second in a series of four which describe a three-year research project into advanced fabric-energy-storage (FES) systems. It presents the construction and validation of a computational-fluid-dynamics ( CFD) model of the 'FES-slab' which is subsequently used to investigate the slab's behaviour under a variety of boundary conditions and with modified air paths. Similar models are used to compare the FES-slab with the competing 'generic slab' and 'hollow-core screed' advanced FES systems.
In the discussion on practice-oriented measures to reduce the CO2 emission, one measure most demanded is the development of zero heating energy houses. The technology applied and investigated in the first pilot projects seems to indicate a possible future without any CO2 emission with respect to residential building. What is really hidden behind this technology and whether it is feasible to introduce it into construction practice, is to be discussed in this contribution with regard to practical experiences.
The utilization of Hybrid Solar Systems in buildings allowed a rational use of energy required to obtain proper comfort conditions inside the building itself. During some research programmes carried out at !CITE, prototypes of test cells capable of supplying significant information on the energetic behaviour of technologically innovative building envelopes for passive and hybrid solar control, have been designed and built.
Most modern office blocks in Southern Africa are air conditioned, for obvious reasons, but some developers are eager to find ways of reducing the capital cost of these projects. Fred Smith of Ove Arup Partnership reports on one· particularly innovative project in Zimbabwe where passive cooling ·met the brief.
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