Failure of natural ventilation strategy in a sustainable house in China

Abstract

In recent years, the concept of green building is becoming popular in China. Architects and engineers have the opportunity to actually implement green building practices. This paper reveals the failure of a naturally ventilated LEED-certified townhouse development project in China mentioned in recent research. The house owners made great alterations for the purpose of decoration, which removed or minimized the effectiveness of natural ventilation elements in the original design. The research shows that the houses show ‘International Style’ because the natural ventilation design principles were not fully applied in the design and the localized natural ventilation strategies were not fully considered by means of computational simulation in the design stage. Also, the lack of communication between designers and the owners caused the removal of most natural ventilation elements of these houses during the occupancy period. The authors advocate three criteria to avoid failures of natural ventilation design: localized/ climate adaptive design, relationship among design elements and design intention awareness.