education

university of luanda, angola

Early on in the process, the design team identified that the budget allowed would not be able to stretch to providing the full air-conditioning to the whole development as had been first envisaged. They decided that many of the faculty buildings would have to be designed to be naturally ventilated.

Whilst parts of the year are ideal for natural ventilation, there are periods when the conditions are hot and humid. The normal approach to achieving comfort during this period would be to turn on the AC, but that would not be an option in the areas that did not have AC and so a serious natural ventilation strategy had to be developed.

We started with a careful analysis of the prevailing winds as these would be the drivers to catching breezes and maintaining comfort throughout these warm periods of the year. We also identified the need for day lighting to keep internal gains (and energy costs) to a minimum, but then the need to ensure that excess solar gain (diffuse and direct) were filtered out before it had a chance to impinge on the occupied spaces.