An airport cooled by natural ventilation

GGeekette about 15 hours ago 20 commentsRead Article on theguardian.com

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Discussion (20 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

plantain•about 3 hours ago

Every time I have been in one of these "naturally ventilated" facilities designed to "not need AC" due to "passive cooling", they've been uncomfortably hot.

It just feels like industrial scale gas-lighting, and no one in charge can admit it doesn't work afterwards because too much was spent on it.

Is stacking solar on the roof and AC's inside really so uneconomical?

xattt•41 minutes ago

My mind goes to the “stickiness” and dampness of higher humidity days.

You can blow the warm air around all you want, but it’s inevitable there will be cooler less-porous surfaces that will condense warming mid-morning air, leaving puddles and wet spots.

Maybe this is a regional design where folks are used to this.

lostlogin•about 2 hours ago

It doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. Too many buildings are build with complete neglect of the environment, with huge swathes of glass facing the sun. Then we have huge chillers try to compete and bring down the temperature. A little consideration goes a long way.

teruakohatu•23 minutes ago

I had an office in one of these buildings. I agree it’s gaslighting. In this specific instance the solution was to block most of the window and work in the dark. Every office was a concrete cave with inadequate lighting.

The upside was that the design didn’t allow it to go open plan.

throwaway198846•about 2 hours ago

Wasn't a problem in such a building I visited but it had an essentially massive thermal battery (mass) cooled at night.

drekipus•about 3 hours ago

I'm convinced there's forces out there who are trying to make these projects deliberately not work so that we can all collectively discredit the idea.

Naturally ventilated airports would probably have issues with fumes. Might not be a great idea.

If I believe correctly the Dyson headquarters was designed to be fairly efficient as well.

My father in laws house was intentionally designed to be naturally ventilated, thermal mass concrete slab in the middle, etc. And it's comfortably cool even on 40 degree days.

daedrdev•about 1 hour ago

The issue is continuous heatwaves, when you either buy ac or start to die. No passive cooling can help you when the nights stay hot

viraptor•about 2 hours ago

> Naturally ventilated airports would probably have issues with fumes.

I'm confused. Do you mean from the food places? Those need proper extraction anyway. Or the cars/planes? Then mechanically ventilated airports take the air basically from outside anyway.

rrr_oh_man•24 minutes ago

> Then mechanically ventilated airports take the air basically from outside anyway.

This is not how A/C works.

fouc•about 3 hours ago

>“Our objective is to maintain an indoor air temperature identical to the outdoor temperature while generating an airflow of 1 metre per second to reduce the perceived temperature for passengers.”

so it's not "cooled" at all

lostlogin•about 2 hours ago

Thats correct, but warm air that is moving cools you more than the same air when it's still.

excannuk•about 2 hours ago

At 35 C moving air heats you up. Like in a convection oven.

nitwit005•about 2 hours ago

> Ceiling fans with a 7.5-metre (24.6ft) diameter help to circulate the air.

Giant fans are rather different than "natural ventilation" mentioned in the headline.

athrun•about 1 hour ago

Funny seeing an article about Reunion island on HN.

I’m very familiar with this airport, and from my perspective the engineers behind the project did a very good job designing a building that can take best advantage of its location. See, the airport is located alongside the coast, and the sea breeze there can be pretty powerful.

Note that this is a new building (dedicated to arrivals), and is adjacent to the original building, which is still in use for departures. The old building is also mostly passively cooled, and the difference in perceived temperature between the two is striking. The old terminal behaves more like a concrete bunker and can get very stuffy. In contrast, this new arrival hall feels a bit like you’re on the deck of a ship at sea.

I have plenty of other issues about other elements of the new building, but that part works pretty well!

hyperpape•about 1 hour ago

> “That is to say that if you reduce air conditioning throughout your life … when you get to 30 degrees in the office, you won’t be hot. In La Réunion, people are used to 30 degrees.”

Your mileage may vary. I live without air conditioning, but when it’s 30, I’m pretty tempted to defect. But I also tend to run hot.

comrade1234•about 3 hours ago

The smell of jet fuel often (not always though) gives me a splitting headache.

haunter•about 1 hour ago

Cheapest and most damaging recreational drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inhalant

lostlogin•about 2 hours ago

But in small doses it smells great.

markdown•about 2 hours ago

> Ceiling fans with a 7.5-metre (24.6ft) diameter help to circulate the air

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cyberax•about 1 hour ago

Heh.

At some point they overused automatic translation for their website. So it was rendered in Russian as "fans of a big ass" ("fan" as in "football fan"): https://web.archive.org/web/20220324070109/https://bigassfan...