Ventilated Airflow Windows for Comfort in a Hot and Humid Climate

Hong Kong’s climate is sub-tropical. It has hot and humid weather during summer and more temperate weather during the winter. The façade accounts for more than 50% of the peak cooling load in office buildings. This makes an integrated façade design important. This paper reports continuing research into optimising the design of a ventilated façade system by controlling the exhaust airflow. The first step was to analyse the ventilation system in a simple office room. This resulted in further integration of a climate responsive façade and an energy efficient MVAC system. This paper reports on the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations carried out for two identical detailed rooms with different façade systems. This determined the advantages in terms of improved thermal comfort of a room with ventilation airflow through a double-skin façade.