SRT257 Building Environmental Studies

You are to obtain and analyse weather data to determine the climate at the location of the case study house, to develop the understanding for the relationships between construction site and applicable design strategies, and to explore general design recommendations for this climate.

You will employ the climate analysis software (Climate Consultant) to analyse the following climate parameters using the weather data, and develop your understanding of the climatic features for the chosen location.

1)      Temperature range

• Determine your project location, and describe the climatic features and seasonal
• Use the software Climate Consultant, page ‘temperature range’ or a similar source to illustrate the monthly outdoor temperature range including average temperatures, extremes and the comfort
• Analyse the relationship between the outside temperature range and the comfort zone, i.e. for which part of the year do the temperatures meet the comfort zone, or are above or below the comfort zone?
• Based on this analysis, what generic design response can you derive in general for residential buildings in this climate in order to provide thermal comfort for different seasons?

2)      Psychrometric chart

• Draw a psychrometric chart using the software ‘Climate Consultant' for the location of the case Illustrate the comfort zone based on the ‘Adaptive Comfort’ Plus 'ASHRAE Standard 55'.
• Based on the analysis of your psychrometric chart, what generic design responses can you derive for residential buildings in this climate to maintain indoor comfort?

3)      Sun shading analysis and solar access

• Using the sun calculator at https://www.suncalc.org/ (or other equivalent calculators), identify the highest solar angles for the winter and summer solstice, i.e., June 21, winter and December 22,
• Based on the identified highest solar angels, illustrate the shading effects of eave design, and discuss generic design response that you can derive in general for residential buildings in this

4)      Wind wheel analysis

• Draw wind wheels using ‘Climate Consultant’ to illustrate the wind characteristics at your location for: (1) February = a typical summer month, and (2) July = a typical winter
• Analyse your illustrations for patterns related to direction, frequency of occurrence, velocity, in combination with temperature and relative
• Based on this analysis, what generic design response can you derive in general for residential buildings in this climate? For example, discuss the potential design strategies for taking advantages of the wind patterns for cooling breezes in summer.

Completing this task will help you to learn:

• How to interpret weather data, and evaluate the relationships between temperature range and comfort zone;
• How to determine the appropriate shading angle of a building based on solar angle at specific time;
• How to evaluate the impacts of wind on a building at a given location and the potential of prevailing wind for cooling breezes;
• Make general recommendations to maintain comfortable environmental conditions in homes by leveraging several factors, including natural sources of heating and cooling (e.g. sun and cooling breezes).

Resources:

• Climate consultant, free
  • Software that illustrates climate data is different Requires weather data in “.epw format”.
• Weather data files in “.epw” format, free use.