A review on applying ventilated double-skin facade to buildings in hot-summer and cold-winter zone in China

The need to energy conservation and sustainable development in buildings is causing a new interest towards passive solar systems. Among them, double-skin facade (DSF) proves to be extremely attractive and promising. DSF is building envelope formed by two layers of different glazing facades which are separated by a ventilated air cavity. The cavity of DSF is used to collect or evacuate the solar radiation absorbed by the facades, thereby improving the thermal comfort and the indoor air quality while conserving energy for heating and cooling. Being a technique developed for colder climates, DSF has been widely applied in commercial buildings across Europe. Nowadays buildings with DSF also appear in the hot-summer and cold-winter zone in China where the weather conditions in summer seem to be not so good for the application. In fact, the thermal analysis of the DSF system is essential to its application in such hot-summer zone. This paper seeks to describe the existing main research methods on the thermal performance of DSF and the shading devices. Problems and possibilities are concomitant. Applying ventilated DSF with controlled shading device system would be a new efficient way for the commercial buildings in the hot-summer and cold-winter zone to meet the task of sustainable building design in China. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.