Scorching summers are here and the use of air conditioning systems for cooling buildings has increased exponentially all around the world. Due to the cooling load requirements of buildings, countries like India are witnessing severe energy crisis for the last two decades, especially during the summer season.
The first reason for concern is global warming and ozone layer depletion because of an escalation in energy consumption. Here are some summer architecture techniques to making your buildings cooler.
Perpetuating a cool and comfortable ambience within a building in the summer relies on demoting the rate of heat gains into the building and promoting the removal of excess heat from the building. To achieve balanced cooling conditions, passive solar design techniques involving the use of natural processes for cooling should be employed. Passive cooling design involves natural means like radiation, conduction or convection without or minimal usage of any electrical device.
The basic principle is to stop the heat from either entering the building or disburse it once it has entered. This relies on two contexts: the availability of a heat sink which is at a lower temperature than the indoor air and the movement of heat transfer towards the sink.
Some of the environmental heat sinks are
Providing Shading by Trees and Vegetation:
Orienting with nature is the best way to reduce heat sinks in houses and commercial buildings. Vegetation and trees especially, shade and reduce the heat gain in the living environment. As a matter of fact, trees and plants could be used as interior decoration accessories, but the prime purpose being to reduce the ambient air temperature as much as 5C. Of course, various types of trees and plants can be chosen on the basis of their growth scale to shade the roof, wall and window orientations.
Roof Pond Insulation:
Roof pond is one among the latest & sought after architecture technique to prohibit heat radiation in a building. The use of roof pond is said to cool the room temperature by as much as 20C during summers. The mechanism behind this technique is simple: The water is cooled by nocturnal cooling by keeping the shallow pond open during the night. During the day, the pond is covered by thermal insulation which results in cooling due to the effect of nocturnally cooled water. On the other hand, the thermal insulation cuts off the solar radiation from the roof.
Air Vents:
Air Vents are classic architectural techniques employed to maintain the living environment as cool as a cucumber. More the building is built with air vents, less the heat transferred into the building due to the temperature difference between the interior and exterior. Curved roof and air vents are the ideal combinations for passive cooling of air in both hot and dry summers.