Massing & Orientation for Cooling

Massing and orientation are important design factors to consider for passive
cooling, specifically, natural ventilation. As a general rule, thin tall buildings
will encourage natural ventilation and utilize prevailing winds, cross
ventilation, and stack effect.

Massing Strategies for Passive Cooling

Thinner buildings increase the ratio of surface area to volume. This will make utilizing natural
ventilation for passive cooling easy. Conversely, a deep floor plan will make natural ventilation
difficult-especially getting air into the core of the building and may require mechanical
ventilation.
Tall buildings also increase the effectiveness of natural ventilation, because wind speeds are
faster at greater heights. This improves not only cross ventilation but also stack effect
ventilation.

Tall buildings improve natural ventilation, and in lower latitudes reduce sun exposure.

While thin and tall buildings can improve the effectiveness of natural ventilation to cool
buildings, they also increase the exposed area for heat transfer through the building envelope.
Sometimes this is good, sometimes not. See Massing & Orientation for Passive Heating.
When planning urban centers, specifically in heating dominated climates, having the buildings
gradually increase in height will minimize high speed winds at the pedestrian level which can
influence thermal comfort. The height difference between neighboring buildings should not
exceed 100%.

Orientation Strategies for Passive Cooling

Buildings should be oriented to maximize benefits from cooling breezes in hot weather and
shelter from undesirable winds in cold weather. Look at the prevailing winds for your site
throughout the year, using a wind rose diagram, to see which winds to take advantage of or
avoid.

Wind-rose
diagram,
showing
statistics
of wind
speed and
direction
throughou
t the year

Generally, orienting the building so that its shorter axis aligns with prevailing winds will provide
the most wind ventilation, while orienting it perpendicular to prevailing winds will provide the
least passive ventilation.

Orientation for maximum passive ventilation

The effectiveness of this strategy and aperture placement can be estimated. Here are some rules
of thumb for two scenarios in which windows are facing the direction of the prevailing wind:
For spaces with windows on only one side, natural ventilation will not reach farther than two
times the floor to ceiling height into the building.
For spaces with windows on opposite sides, the natural ventilation effectiveness limit will be
less than five times the floor to ceiling height into the building.
However, buildings do not have to face directly into the wind to achieve good crossventilation. Internal spaces and structural elements can be designed to channel air through the
building in different directions. In addition, the prevailing wind directions listed by weather data
may not be the actual prevailing wind directions, depending on local site obstructions, such as
trees or other buildings.
For buildings that feature a courtyard and are located in climates where cooling is desired,
orienting the courtyard 45 degrees from the prevailing wind maximizes wind in the courtyard
and cross ventilation through the building.