The Impact of Bioclimatic Facades on the Indoor Thermal Environment of Medium-Rise Office Buildings in South-Eastern China within a Hot and Humid Climate Zone

An increasing reliance on air-conditioning is the inconvenient truth of the building industry of South-East China. Existing buildings appear to abdicate their environmental responsibility, requiring energy driven mechanical services to maintain a comfortable interior habitat against high exterior temperatures and excess humidity, and to aspire to an aesthetically pleasing appearance. This study describes the potential for sustainable architecture, in particular changes to a building’s façade, to design more environmentally friendly offices in the urban cities of South-east China. An integrated environmental design process for improving the thermal performance of a generic office building (our base case) is presented and then interrogated and supported by dynamic computational studies which explore the feasibility of combining ‘Monsoon Window’ and double skin facades to achieve passive internal environmental control. Our findings conclude that >80% of the working hours of October through April achieve thermal comfort without the provision from mechanical services and therefore a substantial reduction in energy consumption is plausible employing these improvements alone.