An airport cooled by natural ventilation

hckrnws

An airport cooled by natural ventilation

(theguardian.com)

21h

by Geekette

plantain
229h
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?
1. lostlogin
  09h
  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.
2. polycancel
  76h
  As someone who grew up with AC, I was one time in Brazil and got stuck in a place without AC. Needless to say the first few nights was hell. I just couldn't follow asleep. However after few days, my body just adjust to the local temperature, and really enjoyed it. In fact, going into mall with AC just feels too cold for me then. Of course there is a limit to what our body can endure, but there is something to be said about exposing and adapting our body to the natural elements instead of just adjusting the environment to make what is comfortable to our body.
  1. jltsiren
    35h
3. xattt
  07h
  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.
4. throwaway198846
  09h
  Wasn't a problem in such a building I visited but it had an essentially massive thermal battery (mass) cooled at night.
5. teruakohatu
  17h
  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.
  1. [deleted]
    07h
    [deleted]
6. drekipus
  79h
  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.
  1. daedrdev
    08h
7. isodev
  07h
  [dead]
athrun
08h
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!
fouc
29h
>“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
1. lostlogin
  19h
  Thats correct, but warm air that is moving cools you more than the same air when it's still.
rayiner
13h
> Ceiling fans with a 7.5-metre (24.6ft) diameter help to circulate the air. In the 30C (86F) humid heat of Réunion’s wet summers, which last from around November to April, the resulting breeze reduces the perceived temperature by four to five degrees, to almost the same level usually set for air conditioning.
Who sets their air conditioning to 82F?
Doing this in a tropical country is penny-wise and pound foolish. As Lee Kuan Yew said, you need air conditioning to be able to think in a tropical country: https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2024/09/air-conditioning-on...
"Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics. Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early-morning hours or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This was key to public efficiency."
nitwit005
09h
> 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.
seemaze
03h
Psychrometrics[0] is a long studied field of perceptual human comfort in relation to temperature and humidity.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychrometrics
comrade1234
49h
The smell of jet fuel often (not always though) gives me a splitting headache.
1. haunter
  18h
  Cheapest and most damaging recreational drugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inhalant
hyperpape
38h
> “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.
1. pezezin
  26h
  It really depends on the humidity. 30 degrees in my dry hometown in central Spain is tolerable, 30 degrees with 90% humidity here in Japan where I live now is pure pain.
[deleted]
07h
[deleted]
raincom
03h
pressure reducing is a key element here. In HVACs, they use metering devices to reduce the pressure of the refrigerants.
markdown
18h
> Ceiling fans with a 7.5-metre (24.6ft) diameter help to circulate the air
Big Ass Fans FTW!
<https://bigassfans.com/fans/?attr_Diameter=24+ft.>
1. cyberax
  08h
  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...
aaron695
09h
[dead]