Resilient Design and Adaptive Thermal Comfort in the Tropics

Abstract

Weather data and a building model play a key role in predicting the environmental performance of buildings. While methods and parameters are broadly discussed, weather files, and specifically future scenarios, are not studied and compared in such an exhaustive manner. This paper explores the sensitivity of a thermodynamic digital model to various weather data, presenting a comparison of the simulation results for a case study under four climatic datasets. The first scenario represents the building as it was projected in the early 2000s; the second one describes the building performance during the year 2015. Finally, two scenarios of future performance (years 2050 and 2080). Fieldwork was carried out during the summer of 2015 to understand the real performance of the building and the user satisfaction. Results show a positive performance of the building through the different scenarios, as a consequence of the intrinsic application of passive strategies in architectural design. Overheating was also assessed using a novel method for humid subtropical climates, the method is based on a 4 point criteria using the EN-15251 comfort equation, it’s objective is to quantify and characterize the overheating hours.