Wind-driven Natural Ventilation Strategies of Green Buildings in Asian Megacities : Case studies in Singapore and Shanghai

Abstract

Asian cities have shared the mission to build larger and taller buildings in urban areas since recent decades. This kind of high-density and compact development has suffocated the natural wind in the built environment. Air-conditioning systems are widely used, which leads to high energy consumption and the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. The study aims to figure out whether could be possible remedies for the Asian Compact City syndrome by exploring an environmentally-friendly paradigm and verifying whether it is possible to apply passive design strategies of the wind-driven natural ventilation, in tow compact cities with high density, Shanghai and Singapore. Two commercial buildings, one in Shanghai and the other in Singapore, are selected as cased for this research. Though Shanghai is in the sub-tropical climate zone while Singapore is in the tropical climate zone, the climates in these two cities are both hot and humid in the summer and subject to monsoon influence. Comparison of these two mega-cities will be made for further discussion of climatic-responsive design strategies.