There are more than 22 million dwellings in the EU27 and approximately 8 million dwellings in USA and Canada that were built before 1919. A large proportion of these are likely to be of uninsulated solid wall construction. The UK has between 5.5 and 7.3 million solid wall dwellings. They are potentially responsible for almost 50% of the total CO2 emissions attributable to the UK housing stock with heat loss through the solid wall the primary cause of these emissions. Architectural vernacular barriers to the adoption of external wall insulation have perhaps been overstated as less than 25% of solid wall dwellings are in conservation zones in the UK. Technologies and systems based on conventional insulation materials have been available in the marketplace for the past three decades. The carbon payback for these systems is less than 2years but the economic payback computed using whole life cycle costing metrics is decades in length. Alternative legislative and policy approaches are needed to stimulate this marketplace as the achievement of national emission targets are unlikely if this technology is excluded as a consequence of perceived economic or socio-cultural barriers.

This chapter describes the energy demand reshaping and supply technologies that may be encapsulated within an advanced building façade. Laboratory testing techniques for the characterisation of the parameters underlying each technology are elaborated as the essential prerequisite of integrated performance appraisals of specific technology combinations in a façade design context. Based on the results from simulations undertaken in the UK climate context, performance benchmarks are suggested for some principal façade configurations.

This chapter is a review of the issues surrounding the design of environmentally responsible buildings. The brief for the environmental conditions (temperature and humidity, light, sound, air quality and their effect on health) inside a building will affect how much energy is required to achieve the conditions and the ease that low energy and passive solutions can work. A building is not isolated and needs to consider the energy, water, food and material sources needed for its construction and operation, and how they sit in wider local, regional and global context.

Reflective insulations and radiant barriers are products used to reduce radiative transport across air spaces. The physical basis for these products, methods of testing, and the standards for reflective-type products are discussed in this chapter. Selected references to the existing literature are included.

This chapter investigates several types of porous materials that have potential to be used as heat and mass transfer media in indirect evaporative cooling systems, namely metals, fibres, ceramics, zeolite and carbon. The investigation identifies the most suitable material and structure. The magnitude of heat/mass transfer rates in relation to air conditioning applications was analysed, and the results showed that thermal properties of the materials, i.e., thermal conductivity and water retaining capacity (porosity), have little impact on system heat/mass transfer, and therefore, these two parameters have low importance in material selection. Instead, shape formation/holding ability, durability, compatibility with waterproof coating, contamination risk and cost are the most important concerns when selecting materials. Each material type was analysed based on the above criteria and the preferable structure and configuration illustrated. Comparing the different material types indicated that wicked (sintered, meshed, grooved or whiskered) metal plates (copper or aluminium) are the most suitable structure and material. Wicked aluminium sheet is much cheaper than copper and therefore more suitable for this application. Other potential applications of porous materials in building are also discussed.

This chapter identifies what constitutes prefabricated buildings and offsite construction, and provides an overview of both old and new systems that are emerging under the banner of modern methods of construction (MMC). It hypothesises that the construction industry has been labelled as being reluctant to change, due in part to a ‘materials led’ approach to building design and delivery; and how government legislation is forcing change engendering a ‘building design led’ culture which seeks to satisfy future building needs and assure sustainability. It suggests that knowledge sharing and partnering are prerequisites for providing swift and effective sustainable design advancement by maximising the use and skills of industry experts across many previously unrelated fields.

The basic principles of creating environments for thermal comfort are well understood. This chapter presents those principles and uses them to address the new challenge of specifying conditions for sustainable thermal comfort. Currently accepted methods and Standards are presented which include the predicted mean vote (PMV) and the predicted percentage dissatisfied (PPD) thermal indices. A description of behavioural models leads to the equivalent clothing index (IEQUIV) and a suggestion that it is not necessary to heat offices above 20°C nor cool them below 25°C. If this practice were followed it would save significant resources and make a step change in progress towards sustainable thermal comfort. It is concluded that while much can be done, our philosophical, technical and scientific understanding of sustainable thermal comfort is still in its infancy.

This chapter introduces the technology of heat storage and cooling and its applications in buildings. It discusses the psychrometrics and air conditioning which are relevant to the thermal energy storage for building thermal comfort applications. The discussion then goes on to three heat storage methods, namely, the sensible, the latent and the chemical heat storage technologies and the issues that are related to the performance of the thermal energy storage. It also presents some of the latest developments in thermal energy storage for energy-saving building thermal comfort applications.

The indoor thermal environment of buildings is usually influenced by the outdoor environment (e.g. climate, landscape and urban pattern) and building design (e.g. building materials, form and planning). Controlling thermal interaction through the building envelope is important for maintaining indoor thermal comfort and therefore it requires proper selection of thermal control strategies and building materials. This chapter looks into the impact of climate on human thermal comfort and urban patterns and building form and fabric in tropical regions. It explores thermal comfort criteria derived from laboratory and field experiments. Published data on thermal comfort illustrate how people respond differently to similar environmental conditions due to factors such as adaptation. The chapter then presents a number of examples from traditional and modern architecture to illustrate the integration of passive cooling and heating technologies into buildings and how these are applied using conventional and more advanced modern building materials. Finally mathematical modelling of known passive heating systems such as Trombe-mass wall, water wall and solar chimney is explained with some performance data.

This chapter introduces heat and mass transport in terms of the fundamentals and their application in the field of materials and building physics. It is the scientific topic that underpins all aspects of energy efficiency and thermal comfort in terms of the materials that make up our buildings and occupied spaces. An overview of thermodynamics and the conservation laws are provided to serve as a refresher for some readers and as a basic introduction for others. The chapter then deals with heat transfer by providing explanations of the fundamental science and then applying this to topics that are relevant to material properties and their application in buildings. The introduction of mass to these materials (e.g. water) adjusts the thermal properties, which in turn can alter the driving potentials for mass transport, which affects the thermal properties, etc., hence the true situation in materials is fully transient and highly time dependent. It is essential to consider this for accurate analysis and understanding of fabric behaviour, or of the indoor environment behaviour in response to the fabric it is made of. It is also an essential approach for studying phenomena such as surface and interstitial condensation, mould growth, as well as implications of changes to fabric (e.g. retrofit upgrades) and for thermal comfort. Therefore the next section in the chapter introduces mass transport where the approach is to, again, provide explanations of the fundamental science and then apply this to topics that are relevant to material properties and their application in buildings. Clearly mass transport is a subject in its own right, as is heat transfer. However, the chapter concludes by making the important point that in reality the two occur simultaneously and are inter-dependent, which leads on to the subject of hygrothermal behaviour.