Evaluating the indoor thermal resilience of ventilative cooling in non-residential low energy buildings: A review

Abstract

Copyright © 2022 The Authors. The quality of future working circumstances for many will be contingent on how low energy indoor spaces respond to challenges from accelerated ambient warming. Resilient cooling is increasingly relevant given the need to evaluate whether a building designed today is resilient against extreme disturbances to the thermal environment from events in the future. The most vulnerable spaces are likely to be those that adopt ventilative cooling. This study reviewed recent research relating to these buildings, discussing different definitions, metrics and approaches available to quantify indoor thermal resilience, also evaluating the extent to which existing published studies have captured each of the resilient criteria. Findings show that, while the vulnerability and resistance of indoor environments in low energy buildings has been investigated, more research is needed regarding the robustness and recoverability of ventilative cooling strategies. More studies are needed examining the resilience of designs that incorporate different heat sinks as well as multiple supplementary passive cooling interventions. There is also a lack of empirical data for ventilative cooling in low energy buildings to verify and support improvements in design practices and building regulations. Studies investigating the holistic response of occupants under extreme conditions in these spaces are also needed.