PhD project plan for Tommy Kleiven Project title: "Natural Ventilation in Buildings - Architectural Concepts, Consequences and Possibilities". Ph.D. program title: "Natural and Hybrid Ventilation - Concepts and Consequences".

Research field and research question Natural ventilation in buildings relies on wind and thermal buoyancy as driving forces. Humankind has used these driving forces throughout history to create the desired thermal environment and to transport away undesired contaminants. From the first primitive living quarters with the fireplace in the centre, the technique we take advantage of to control and adjust our indoor climate has grown ever more sophisticated. This technique has in the 20th century been dominated by mechanical ventilation and air conditioning technologies. These technologies have developed into systems of great complexity with an increasing number of components, need for space, and use of energy. Despite this, many of these systems do not manage to deliver the desired indoor climate. Because of this contradiction, the focus has again been put on simpler, more robust and less energy consuming solutions. The driving pressures derived from wind and thermal buoyancy are low compared to those produced by fans in mechanical ventilation systems. Thus, the building itself, with rooms, corridors, stairways etc., rather than the ducts familiar from mechanical ventilation is used as air path. A natural ventilation concept is therefore highly integrated in the building body and will influence on building design and architecture. This work examines the relationship between building design and natural ventilation. The work tries to seek out the architectural consequences of natural ventilation, and to what extent the natural airflow has a potential of being a 'design criterion', -a contributing parameter giving shape to buildings. The basic questions of this research can be formulated as: What is the relationship between building design and natural ventilation? How does different natural ventilation concepts affect the architecture? How does naturally ventilation of a building affect the work of the architect? Is there a potential of using airflow as a guiding factor in the development of a design? The work will be limited to office and school buildings in northern Europe.

Objectives * To identify and classify different natural ventilation concepts, and find the correlations between the ventilation concept and the building type (size, shape and function) * To investigate the architectural consequences of the various concepts * To explore the architectural possibilities of using naturally induced airflow as a guiding factor in the development of the design * To learn to know the architects experience with designing naturally ventilated buildings Strategy * Carry out literature and building studies, and establish a hypothesis or a set of research questions * Identify and sort various natural ventilation concepts * Find a way to analyse (and systemise) the architectural consequence of the ventilation concepts * Select 3-4 case study buildings to investigate the architectural consequences on * Interview the architects and their relevant consultants on the respective case building * Associate 3-5 buildings to each of the main cases with comparable size, shape, function and ventilation concept as the respective main case * Pinpoint the architectural possibilities of natural ventilation, and draw conclusions Proposed thesis contents in brief 1.  Introduction   (Research field, -approach, -focus etc.) 2.  Ventilation (history, purpose, definitions etc.) 3.  Concepts of natural ventilation 4.  Case studies     (Methodology, selection of cases etc.) 5.  B&O headquarters building in Struer, Denmark 6.  GSW headquarters building in Berlin, Germany 7.  Medić school in Grong, Norway 8.  Architectural possibilities of natural ventilation 9.  Conclusions

Tommy Kleiven M.Arch. MNAL PhD student    Department of Building Technology   Faculty of Architecture, Planning, and Fine Arts   Norwegian University of Science and Technology A. Getz vei 3, N-7491 Trondheim, Norway Telephone : +47 73 59 33 45 (direct line) Fax : +47 73 59 50 45 E-mail: tommy.kleiven@ark.ntnu.no URL: http://www.ntnu.no/arkitekt/bt/ansatte/kleiven.html Revised: Oct.2001 - iw