TROPICAL DESIGN THEORIES AND STRATEGIES

PASSIVE DESIGN STRATEGIES

Natural Ventilation - also called passive ventilation, uses natural outside air movement and pressure
differences to both passively cool and ventilate a building.

Types:

1) Wind Ventilation

2) Stack Ventilation & Bernoulli's Principle

3) Night – Purge Ventilation

WIND VENTILATION

Wind ventilation is a kind of passive ventilation that uses the force of the wind to pull air through the
building.

• Cross Ventilation - When placing ventilation openings, you are placing inlets and outlets to
optimize the path air follows through the building. Windows or vents placed on opposite sides
of the building give natural breezes a pathway through the structure. This is called cross-
ventilation. Cross-ventilation is generally the most effective form of wind ventilation.

CROSS VENTILATION

It is generally best not to place openings exactly across from each other in a space. While this does give
effective ventilation, it can cause some parts of the room to be well-cooled and ventilated while other
parts are not. Placing openings across from, but not directly opposite, each other causes the room's air
to mix, better distributing the cooling and fresh air. Also, you can increase cross ventilation by having
larger openings on the leeward faces of the building that the windward faces and placing inlets at higher
pressure zones and outlets at lower pressure zones
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STEERING BREEZES

• Not all parts of buildings can be oriented for cross-ventilation. But wind can be steered by
architectural features, such as casement windows, wing walls, fences, or even strategically-
planted vegetation.

• Architectural features can scoop air into a room. Such structures facing opposite directions on
opposite walls can heighten this effect. These features can range from casement windows or
baffles to large-scale structures such as fences, walls, or hedgerows.
WING WALL

Wing walls project outward next to a window, so that even a slight breeze against the wall creates a high
pressure zone on one side and low on the other. The pressure differential draws outdoor air in through
one open window and out the adjacent one. Wing walls are especially effective on sites with low
outdoor air velocity and variable wind directions
STACK VENTILATION

• Stack ventilation uses temperature differences to move air. Hot air rises because of its lower
pressure. For this reason, it is sometimes called buoyancy ventilation.

BERNOULLI’S PRINCIPLE

Bernoulli's principle uses wind speed differences to move air. It is a general principle of fluid dynamics,
saying that the faster air moves, the lower its pressure. Architecturally speaking, outdoor air farther
from the ground is less obstructed, so it moves faster than lower air, and thus has lower pressure. This
lower pressure can help suck fresh air through the building. A building's surroundings can greatly affect
this strategy, by causing more or less obstruction
NIGHT PURGE VENTILATION

• Night-Purge Ventilation (or "night flushing") keeps windows and other passive ventilation
openings closed during the day, but open at night to flush warm air out of the building and cool
thermal mass for the next day.

Because the "coolth" of night-purge ventilation is stored in thermal mass, it requires a building with
large areas of exposed internal thermal mass. This means not obscuring floors with carpets and
coverings, walls with cupboards and panels, or ceilings with acoustic tiles and drop-panels. Using natural
ventilation for the cooling also requires a relatively unobstructed interior to promote air flow

APERTURES FOR COOLING

• Opening shape - Opening shape matters and can influence airflow effectiveness. Long
horizontal strip windows can ventilate a space more evenly. Tall windows with openings at top
and bottom can use convection as well as outside breezes to pull hot air out the top of the room
while supplying cool air at the bottom.

• Opening size - Window or louver size can affect both the amount of air and its speed. For an
adequate amount of air, one rule of thumb states that the area of operable windows or louvers
should be 20% or more of the floor area, with the area of inlet openings roughly matching the
area of outlets. However, to increase cooling effectiveness, a smaller inlet can be paired with a
larger outlet opening. With this configuration, inlet air can have a higher velocity. Because the
same amount of air must pass through both the bigger and smaller openings in the same period
of time, it must pass through the smaller opening more quickly.