Design of the natural ventilation system for the new San Diego children's museum

This paper presents an analysis of the thermal 
behaviour of the new San Diego Children’s museum 
and the subsequent development of a low energy 
climate control system. The museum is designed as a 
naturally ventilated building with no mechanical 
heating or cooling. The exhibition space consists of two galleries on the first and second floors and an atrium that extends over the two floors. There are openings on each floor, at the roof level and a solar chimney. The assessment of the ventilation system consisted of an initial analysis of the stack-driven ventilation. It was found that using only stack-driven ventilation led to predictions of significant periods of overheating in the museum. An analysis of the weather data then showed that there is a high correlation between the days of high temperature and a moderate prevailing wind – the sea breeze. Consequently, it was decided to use this wind to supplement the stack-driven flow. As a result additional openings were placed in the façade, and the solar chimney opening was oriented to be in suction during these periods. A BMS system and a control strategy were developed to optimize the performance of the building. As a consequence of these measures the number of predicted hot hours decreased significantly, and the results suggest that the building will operate satisfactorily. The tools used in this analysis were a specifically designed weather analysis spreadsheet, EnergyPlus with COMIS and computational fluid dynamics (CFD).