Browsing by Author "Gou, Z"

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item: Article-Full-text
Effectiveness of air-well type courtyards on moderating thermal environments in tropical Chinese Shophouse
(Taylor & Francis, 2017) Gamage, W; Lau, S; Qin, H; Gou, Z
In Southeast Asia with tropical climates, Chinese Shophouse (CSH) as a type of vernacular architecture is usually equipped with small intermediate air-well type courtyards, also known as ‘Tianjin’, to moderate the indoor thermal environment. This paper investigates the effectiveness of air-well type courtyards as passive design strategies on moderating indoor thermal environments in two CSHs located in Malacca, Malaysia. The study used a field survey and a CFD simulation. Statistical analyses of indoor air temperature and heat index (HI) measured at different locations of the CSHs show that intermediate spaces next to the air-wells had significantly lower air temperature and HI. Cross ventilation through the openings on the walls and air-wells resulted in a significantly lower normalized mean age of air and higher air velocity. The air-well is a suitable passive design strategy to reduce overheating during daytime and to increase cooling of building structure during night-time. The air-well courtyards should be arranged in alignment with the prevailing wind to maximize the cross ventilation and passive cooling.
item: Article-Full-text
An investigation of thermal comfort and adaptive behaviors in naturally ventilated residential buildings in tropical climates: A pilot study
(Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2018) Gou, Z; Gamage, W; Stephen, SL; Lau, SSY
his article presents a pilot study of thermal comfort and adaptive behaviors of occupants who live in naturally ventilated dormitories at the campus of the National University of Singapore. A longitudinal survey and field measurement were conducted to measure thermal comfort, adaptive behaviors and indoor environment qualities. This study revealed that occupants living in naturally ventilated buildings in tropics were exposed to higher operative temperatures than what American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) comfort standards recommend for naturally conditioned spaces. However, they still felt that such conditions were acceptable. Two behavioral adjustments were found to have profound impacts on occupants’ acceptance of the imposed heat stresses: (1) increasing the indoor air velocity by turning on mechanical fans and opening the door/windows for cross ventilation, and (2) reducing clothing insulation by changing clothes and dressing in fewer clothes. Higher indoor air velocities were also associated with greater satisfaction with indoor air quality. The future study should develop a statistical model to correlate adaptive behaviors with temperature variations for tropical climates.