Thermal Behaviour of Double Skin Facades: A Case in IT Buildings

The Façade is synonymous with “a boundary and inner face, and a backdrop of streets and urban spaces”. But the façade as a building envelope also stands for intelligent systems, which can be planned and executed perfectly with a broad range of technology and materials. Therfore efficient energy management, interior climatic control and protection from outside influences such as noise, heat, cold or the sun’s rays are the fundamental requirements of a modern building and of the building envelope per se. Hence the main objectives of this paper are (a) to investigate the thermal effect of double skin facades in an IT office building in the warm and humid climate of Chennai and (b) to propose guidelines for their efficient design based on the evaluation as per ECBC by numerical analysis. An effort is made to analyse the IT building under study to investigate the Façade with respect to the thermal gradient across the existing façade section. The main source for the high cooling loads was found to be heat gain through windows and walls. This led to the evolution of a series of façade strategies with the goals of reducing heat gain, providing ventilation and daylighting along with the use of appropriate insulating materials.