Energy-Efficient Building Design for a Tropical Climate: A Field Study on the Caribbean Island Curaçao

Richenel Bulbaai and Johannes I. M. Halman
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Richenel Bulbaai: Faculty of Engineering, University of Curaçao, Jan Noorduynweg 111, Willemstad, Curacao
Johannes I. M. Halman: Department of Construction Management & Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Technology, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 23, 1-13

Abstract: Based on an extensive literature review on passive building designs for tropical climates, seven energy-efficient building design principles for tropical climate areas were deduced. These are: 1. To orientate a building design in such a direction that it protects from excessive solar radiation; 2. To accommodate for indoor natural ventilation; 3. That it makes maximal use of indirect instead of direct natural light; 4, That it reduces the amount of heat transmission through the roof as much as possible by natural ventilation between roof and ceiling and by lowering the roof surface temperature; 5. By preventing the use of high thermal mass materials; 6. By reducing through the exterior walls as much as possible heat transmission by e.g., preventing direct sunlight on the external walls and applying reflective paints on the external walls and; 7. By creating outdoor and transition spaces such as balconies, terraces atriums and corridors. The insights from the literature review were used as input to conduct a field study to evaluate the practice of applying passive building design principles. To this end, for 626 buildings on the Caribbean island Curaçao, it was investigated to what extent the recommended passive design principles for tropical climates were actually applied. Based on the results of the field study, several recommendations are made to improve the practice of applying passive building principles.

Keywords: passive design principles; building design for tropical climates; sustainable energy use; energy efficiency; application of passive building design principles in Curaçao (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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