Assessment of natural ventilation using a whole-building simulation model: a case study of a landmark building

Abstract

Whole-building simulation and field measurements were conducted at two levels: at the whole building level and at the local-space level, at a landmark building in Vancouver, Canada. The analysis shows that calibrated whole-building simulations are accurate enough and useful for the assessment of natural ventilation. For large complex spaces, the analysis needs to be coupled with computational fluid dynamics to predict thermal stratification. In the case study building, such coupling was not critical, because changes in the natural ventilation original design intent caused a large atrium to be decoupled from the rest of the building, which was detrimental to the effectiveness of the natural cooling of the building in the summer.