Designing energy efficient and thermally comfortable buildings

Designing public buildings for thermal comfort as well as energy efficiency in temperature oceanic climate, Melbourne

Public buildings like church with high volume and intermittent occupancy can be designed in a manner to save the energy consumption and reduce environmental impact. A detailed study of daily outdoor temperature and corresponding indoor temperature for both free building and a serviced building are studied and these inputs are used for building design.

Passive Design: For the passive design, the outdoor temperatures were studied and using standard formulae the corresponding indoor temperature for free running was studied. This indicated as to how thermal comfort could be achieved using building form, orientations, window openings, shading devices etc. Such a building relied on outdoor temperature and building fabric to achieve thermal comfort.
The passive design of the building indicated that thermal comfort was not achievable throughout the year- building services were needed to achieve thermal comfort.
Therefore, the possibilities of running the building in hybrid mode was studied- free running building in certain seasons and using services in winter months and overheating in summers.
The thermal comfort was achieved by studying the activity hours, occupancy, outdoor temperature variation throughout the day and designing services which could work throughout the year in an efficient manner. Underfloor hydronic heating/cooling system was used in conjunction with heating-cooling combined with ventilation systems.

The climate for Melbourne is similar to British climate, therefore the British standards were applicable in design. Since the nature of the building is intermittent occupancy, the actual peak load during occupancy hours were studied to design services.