Design for Climate Change

5Designing for Thermal Comfort: Cooling Strategies

In the UK, it should be possible to design most buildings to be free running in summer, ie able to remain comfortable without the aid of mechanical systems. Rising summer temperatures will make this increasingly difficult, but the findings from the Design for Future Climate projects provide useful pointers on how to delay or avoid the need for mechanical systems as the climate changes.

Ventilation

In a free-running building, natural ventilation is the principal means of removing heat. It is therefore important that the building is designed to promote and control effective purge ventilation. This requires much larger openings than those needed to provide the minimum fresh-air levels on which ...