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S. Eikemeier, M. Schuss, U. Pont, R. Wimmer, A. Mahdavi:
"Monitoring of a prototypical free-running building: A case study in a hot-and-humid climate";
Talk: ENVIBUILD 2016 - Buildings and Environment - Energy Performance, Smart Materials and Buildings, Brno, Czech Republic; 2016-09-22 - 2016-09-23; in: "Buildings and Environment - Energy Performance, Smart Materials and Buildings", M. Kalousek et al. (ed.); Eigenverlag mit wissenschaftlichem Lektorar / Peer Review, Envibuild, (2016).

The provision of comfortable indoor conditions is widely considered as one of the key tasks of architecture. Hereby, different climatic regions require different concepts for the operation of buildings. The building sector is known to be responsible for a high fraction of the global energy consumption. Accordingly many efforts have been initiated to reduce the buildings´ energy use and environmental impact. One approach is to reduce the operational energy use of buildings. Achieving thermal comfort in buildings in hot and humid regions without Air-Conditioning can be considered as a challenging task. In this context we present a monitoring study of the indoor conditions in a new prototype building. This building is part of a resort, which was designed with the intent to reach a high degree of sustainability and to have little environmental impact. Night-time ventilation and shading devices were integrated in the building´s climatic concept. To explore the viability of this concept, we deployed comprehensive monitoring of the outdoor conditions via a weather station and of the indoor conditions via air temperature and relative humidity sensors. The latter were positioned in different rooms of the building. Moreover, short term monitoring of thermal comfort was conducted. In a first analysis step we assessed the results of the indoor monitoring of the different rooms and compared them to the corresponding outdoor measurements. In a second step we conducted a standardized thermal comfort study. Thereby we considered the special circumstances of the thermal comfort in naturally ventilated buildings. Results suggest that acceptable indoor conditions can be maintained, if passive cooling methods are applied properly.

(no german version) The provision of comfortable indoor conditions is widely considered as one of the key tasks of architecture. Hereby, different climatic regions require different concepts for the operation of buildings. The building sector is known to be responsible for a high fraction of the global energy consumption. Accordingly many efforts have been initiated to reduce the buildings´ energy use and environmental impact. One approach is to reduce the operational energy use of buildings. Achieving thermal comfort in buildings in hot and humid regions without Air-Conditioning can be considered as a challenging task. In this context we present a monitoring study of the indoor conditions in a new prototype building. This building is part of a resort, which was designed with the intent to reach a high degree of sustainability and to have little environmental impact. Night-time ventilation and shading devices were integrated in the building´s climatic concept. To explore the viability of this concept, we deployed comprehensive monitoring of the outdoor conditions via a weather station and of the indoor conditions via air temperature and relative humidity sensors. The latter were positioned in different rooms of the building. Moreover, short term monitoring of thermal comfort was conducted. In a first analysis step we assessed the results of the indoor monitoring of the different rooms and compared them to the corresponding outdoor measurements. In a second step we conducted a standardized thermal comfort study. Thereby we considered the special circumstances of the thermal comfort in naturally ventilated buildings. Results suggest that acceptable indoor conditions can be maintained, if passive cooling methods are applied properly.

thermal comfort, hot-and-humid climate, long-term monitoring. indoor climatic assessment.