Comparison of Occupant Thermal Comfort with and without Passive Design for a Naturally Ventilated Educational Building: a case study in Cairo, Egypt

Occupant thermal comfort in educational buildings is important for students as it support the educational process itself. The passive design of naturally ventilated buildings plays a crucial role in achieving occupant thermal comfort but the passive design itself might be of higher cost to convince the owner even with proofs from the pre and while design simulation outputs. In this paper, the as built of a 1000 students’ educational building is simulated using Design Builder and compared with the same thermal zones of the as built but with passive cooling applications. Two wind catchers, shading devices, low e-glass windows, double skin façade, and double roof were applied as amelioration strategies. The status of student comfort was improved in terms of both Predicted Mean Vote and air temperature, compared with the base case of the building. It is concluded that shading the roofs and southern facade of the building envelope were the most efficient scenarios for the passively modified version of the building.