Effect Of Envelope Design on Thermal Comfort Inside Office Buildings

Abstract

This paper is about the research into the effect of building envelope design on the thermal performance of the high-rise office buildings in Ahmedabad’s hot and semi-arid climate. A façade is a partition between indoor and outdoor environments, therefore, performing the role of a thermal barrier. Every office aims for its employees to be healthy and more productive and to ensure this, it is important to look into the working environment or the indoor environment of the office. A suitable indoor thermal condition not only generates thermal satisfaction among the users but also helps in reducing the energy consumption of the building substantially. Maximum energy is consumed by the building sector for designing, construction, operation and demolition of buildings. Most of this energy is used up to control the temperature of the building, which is for heating/cooling. In hot climates, mechanical means of cooling or air conditioning have become the most popular response to provide comfort to the occupants thereby increasing the building energy consumption to enormous levels. Different corporate office buildings have been taken up with dissimilar façade treatments to understand the difference of comfort level between them. To understand effects of facade, on-site temperature readings are taken along with a post-occupancy survey to note down the occupants’ satisfaction level. Software simulations are done to compare and understand the performance of the building throughout the year. This study aims to understand and analyze the parameters of the envelope of a building that helps in determining the thermal conditions of spaces.