About half of the energy loss in buildings is wasted through windows. Determining the optimum window-to-wall ratio (WWR) for different building facades would reduce such energy losses. The optimum WWR is the window area that minimizes the total annual energy of cooling, heating, and lighting. The purpose of this study is to investigate the optimum WWR of different facades of an office building. For this purpose, a sample building is simulated by means of DesignBuilder software in order to investigate the annual solar heat gain, cooling load, heating load, and lighting consumption for the three cities of Bushehr, Shiraz, and Tabriz, and optimum window areas of office buildings for the three cities are determined. Based on the results, the optimum window area for the north building facade for all climates is 20–30%. This amount for the southern facade of the building in Bushehr, Shiraz, and Tabriz is, respectively, 20–30%, 10–30%, and 20–50%. The optimum window area for the eastern and western building facades in Bushehr is 30–50%; in Tabriz it is 40–70%, and in Shiraz it is 20–60% and 40–70%, respectively. The difference between the maximum and minimum energy consumption with different window areas in Bushehr and Shiraz is 20–100% and in Tabriz it is 16–25%.

A considerable amount of energy is being consumed for heating and cooling indoor environments in order to provide thermal comfort. For older buildings located in the southern parts of Iran, particularly in Bushehr, many climatic and passive design strategies are being used to provide indoor thermal comfort. This architecture and these elements have been developed in response to unfavorable weather conditions. The current study aimed to identify those passive elements and evaluate indoor thermal comfort in older houses. To achieve these objectives, passive elements in main houses located in the ancient urban structure were first identified. Then, a house in the coastal belt, Tabib’s house, and another house inside the ancient urban structure, Nozari’s house, were selected for the purpose of field measurement. The results revealed that the passive techniques used in these older houses significantly provide sufficient indoor thermal conditions. The mean measured predicted mean vote (PMV) of Tabib’s rooms was 0.88 and the mean measured PMV of Nozari’s rooms was 0.91, which were in an acceptable range. The measured predicted percentage of dissatisfied of rooms in both houses were lower than 10%. The main factor in creating indoor thermal comfort in these houses was the natural ventilation and its availability in the selected houses.

Extensive cost in the building industry comes from cooling and heating to create thermal comfort. Hence, it is necessary to utilize passive solutions, in addition to suitable design, in order to reduce energy consumption. This research attempts to investigate the impact of archetype patterns in office buildings on annual energy consumption for cooling, heating and daylight loads. For this purpose, the DesignBuilder software was used to compare the forms. In this study, four conventional construction forms were considered, including the single and dense form, central courtyard buildings, U form and linear form, and each was considered with two, four and six-stories. Forms were simulated in the three cities of Bushehr, Shiraz and Tabriz, with hot-humid, hot-dry and cold climates, respectively. The results revealed that the office building with a linear form in Bushehr had the lowest energy consumption in the two and four-story forms, and also in the six-story form, the central courtyard form had the lowest energy consumption. Additionally, the central courtyard forms in Tabriz and Shiraz had the lowest energy consumption in all cases. Finally, the linear form possessed the most natural daylight through all of the studied cases for the three cities in terms of natural light gain.

No abstract

In traditional buildings many climatic strategies have been used to provide indoor thermal comfort in south and central parts of Iran. A common element is called an iwan. This study investigates the indoor thermal comfort of a room adjoined to a talar in a traditional house which has an iwan, in Shiraz, Iran. The data related to the temperature and relative humidity of the room are used to calculate the thermal comfort index of PMV (Predicted Mean Vote) and PPD (Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied) by considering the following two cases: a talar room with an iwan and one without an iwan, by means of DesignBuilder software. For the purpose of validation, the air temperature and relative humidity of the talar room with an iwan were measured over 10 days and compared to the results of the simulation. Having a valid simulation, computation was conducted for the selected house in various cases for an annual passive operation of calculating PMV and PPD. The numerical results revealed that the talar room adjoined to an iwan located in the south front of the courtyard had relatively good conditions during the hot months, including June and July. In addition, it could provide fully satisfactory comfort conditions during August and September. According to the results, it is found that the iwan makes a talar room 62% more desirable for the hot months in comparison with a talar room without an iwan.