Predicting the potential for natural ventilation of buildings in the urban environment.

Natural ventilation is a rewarding technique for use in sustainable building design, due to its strengths in health, comfort, energy saving and economy. The speed-up of global warming and urbanisation urges us to effectively utilise this technique in the urban environment. By coupling the virtual wind tunnel and airflow network models, the potential of natural ventilation driven by the combination of wind and buoyancy forces was calculated.