Full Scale Testing and Computer Simulation of a Double Skin Façade Building

Environmental design goals Environmental conditions within the laboratories and their support spaces demand high volumes of treated air to maintain safe and comfortable working conditions for research staff and their students. The overall design team environmental conditions objectives were to design a building with a DSF to the offices, which reduces the annual energy consumption. The design goals are to significantly improve the total building environmental performance in terms of energy reduction. This new design responds to individual office occupancy's demands including the ability to naturally ventilate, and the building environmental systems for the outdoors that can be tuned to suit occupancy, and the external climate including the option of natural ventilation of the space during the spring and autumn seasons. This paper deals specifically with analysis of the thermal, airflow and daylighting performance of the façade elements and in particular with the Double Skin Façade (DSF) applied to the south and southeast facing office spine of a laboratory building. DSF have been applied successfully in Europe for a number of years with the desire to create a more natural internal climate, good daylight quality and access to outdoor air. The focus of this new study is not just on energy reduction and a design of a better work environment but also show building performance simulations support the design process directly.