Enhancing Thermal Comfort in Converted Dwellings through Passive Design Strategies

Poorly ventilated dwellings, new winter-focused insulation standards, and the increasing global temperatures are factors that aggravate the overheating during hot spells. The number of dwellings that experience overheating are exponentially rising, and simultaneously are the number of deaths. Overheating is currently of a major concern for many UK dwellings particularly in urban areas. The projected alarming temperature rise of 4 °C in the next 50 years in addition to more frequent heatwaves also contributes to the need of urgency to address this issue. This paper investigates the effects of passive design strategies, including natural ventilation, solar shading, and optimised window sizes and openings, on thermal comfort in a case study residential building in London. Dynamic thermal simulation in IES(VE) was conducted and CIBSE TM59 was used for the assessments. The results show significant improvement in thermal comfort particularly when a combination of these strategies was considered.