Optimal interior design for naturally ventilated low-income housing: a design-route for environmental quality and cooling energy saving

ABSTRACT This study intends to optimize the interior design layout of a low-income resettlement tenement unit that would deliver improved indoor environment experience, and harness high cooling energy saving potential by maximizing natural ventilation utilization. A mixed-mode research framework including ‘Sampling based parametric modelling’ followed by ‘computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations’ and ‘Multi-objective optimization’ was employed to derive at an optimal design layout (ODL) with enhanced experiential environmental quality in natural ventilation condition. The computational modelling was validated with environmental sensor data and occupant behaviour questionnaire survey. The CFD simulations coupled with energy transfer model was adopted here to estimate the energy saving potential of the naturally ventilated ODL. The final ODL was able to save 470.897 kWh of cooling energy annually with an annual cost saving of INR 3177.65, thereby saving 26.48% of the monthly average income of a typical low-income household. The results can aid building designers towards the conception of eco-sustainable habitat design guidelines.