Envelope design and thermal comfort performance in a high-rise office building in Saudi Arabia



Alyami, F and Sharples, S ORCID: 0000-0002-6309-9672
(2017) Envelope design and thermal comfort performance in a high-rise office building in Saudi Arabia. In: 33rd International Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture, 2017-7-3 - 2017-7-5, Edinburgh.

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Abstract

Thermal comfort is a key aspect when assessing a sustainable building's performance. In hot climates, such as Saudi Arabia, achieving comfort can require large amounts of cooling energy if the building has not been designed to take advantage of passive cooling techniques. In this study a thermal model of a real high-rise office building in Saudi Arabia was created and used to predict internal air temperatures, comfort levels and energy consumptions using DesignBuilder® software for summer days. Field measurements of comfort levels and internal temperatures were taken in the actual building to compare with the modelled data to check for acceptable agreement, and a small thermal comfort survey with office workers was also undertaken. The as-built office model was then parametrically altered for a range of passive strategies (including glazing area, insulation levels and thermal mass) to identify the most effective approaches to reducing cooling energy demand. The resultant optimized building was then tested under future climate scenarios for Saudi Arabia to check if the identified solutions were still effective. The study revealed that certain passive approaches could be applied successfully while maintaining an acceptable corporate image for the building - this was true for both current and future climates. The potential contribution of this study is the identification and testing of thermal comfort strategies to be used in the early design stages which will facilitate architectural design processes, practice and education.

Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Unspecified)
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 26 Jul 2017 13:36
Last Modified: 19 Jan 2023 06:58
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3008643