Natural ventilation in urban areas – assessment of potential and optimal façade design
The URBVENT project aimed to provide a methodology to assess the potential and feasibility of, and to design optimal façades for natural ventilation in an urban environment, accessible to architects, designers and decision makers. The methodology and the tools were tested in three stages by the developers, end-users and project integrator.
Project duration: 2001-2003
The project consisted of four workpackages (WP):
- Soft Computing of Natural Ventilation Potential
- Optimal Openings Design
- Engineering Validation
- Synthesis.
The main contribution of the LESO-PB addressed WP 1. A model was developed to predict the natural ventilation potential of buildings in urban climates. This model is easy to use, but nevertheless takes account of all the parameters influencing natural ventilation, including those for which only qualitative information is available. It is based on qualitative multicriteria analysis.
LESO-PB Publications related to this project
- M. Germano, C. Ghiaus. Multicriteria assessment of the natural ventilation potential of a building in an urban environment. CISBAT 2003. Lausanne, Switzerland. 8 October 2003
- M. Germano, C. Ghiaus. Multicriteria assessment of the natural ventilation potential an urban site. Proceedings of CISBAT 2003, Lausanne, Switzerland, 8 October, 2003, pp. 173-178
- M. Germano, C.-A. Roulet, F. Allard, C. Ghiaus. Potential for natural ventilation in urban context: an assessment method, EPIC 2002 AIVC Conference Energy efficient and healthy buildings in sustainable cities, Lyon, 23-26 October, 2002, pp. 519-524
- C.-A. Roulet, M. Germano, F. Allard, C. Ghiaus. Potential for natural ventilation in urban context: an assessment method. Proceedings Indoor Air 2002, 9th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate, (Full paper on CD), June 30-July 5 2002, Monterey, California, USA, pp. 830-835
Project partners
EU coordinator: Francis Allard, University of La Rochelle, France
Project leader at EPFL: Claude-Alain Roulet [email protected]
Collaborators : Mario Germano
External participants in Europe:
- National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Greece
- Wetenschappelijk en Technisch Centrum voor het Bouwbedrijf Belgium
- University of North London United Kingdom
- Instituto de Engenharia Mecânica Portugal
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique France
- Building Research Establishment Limited United Kingdom
- Swiss participants: Sulzer Infra Lab AG