IMPACT OF NATURAL VENTILATION OPTIONS ON ARCHITECTURAL SYNTHESIS. FLOOR PLAN, SECTION, FACADE.

The synthesis of an architectural project can be rated, defined and identified by various qualitative and quantitative characteristics. A lot of these characteristics can be related with fundamental design principles and actions, forming a crucial syntactic architectural context which describes the project. This context may regard functional, optical, constructional, bioclimatic or other aspects providing analogous qualities on the produced result.
Fatouros [1] gives substantial guidelines for an architect to understand an architectural synthesis. In order to organize this comprehension he elaborates issues as intensity, continuation, interruption, boundary, space, geometry etc. Vakalo [2] deals with optical syntax and subjects as visual perception, respective elements, principles, processes, manipulations, etc. He conveys foremost regulations that architects should be aware of, in order to create a synthesis which can reflect the meaning that they want to provide. Chan [3] examines phenomena, factors, rules and impacts about a particular design theme such as rhythm. Elements of composition are analysed with references of particular paradigms that aid a respective cognitive and design process. Arnheim [4] deals with the dynamics of architectural form and topics as elements of space, vertical and horizontal, full and void, motion, order and disorder, expression, function etc are included in his work. Arnheim’s analysis helps architects to evaluate their projects considering their visual configuration and respective organization. Ching [5] studies fundamental elements of the architectural form and examines subjects as point, line, plane, volume, form, space, organization, circulation, analogy, layout principles etc. Issues such as the aforementioned ones can constitute significant criterions that rate an architectural synthesis yielding important and interesting characteristics and features.
As regards natural ventilation options, recent literature presents a great number of papers about natural ventilation of buildings, such as [6]- [8], which explore natural ventilation parameters and concurrently refer to certain formative shapes. These shapes usually correspond to specific natural ventilation strategies which are explored with simulation methods in order to find improved ventilation parameters that lead to advanced ventilation options.
Stavridou and Prinos [9] investigate natural crossventilation options. They explore natural ventilation due to buoyancy assisted by wind, in an orthogonal building form, with computational and laboratory simulation. Their findings regard the position of the outlet opening, the flow field, the duration and the type of ventilation, the process of the investigation etc. Moreover, Stavridou [10] examines the impact of the investigation into the natural ventilation of buildings on four substantial parameters of architectural design. She introduces the “breathing architecture” concept and configures a new approach to the architectural design process based on natural ventilation of buildings. The above approach proposes new options for building forms and shapes, providing new potentialities of exploiting the natural ventilation research.
Considering the existing literature, the combination of investigating natural ventilation options in conjunction with architectural synthesis is a substantial domain for research. Such compound provides new prospects in architectural design, revitalizes the nature of the synthetic qualities and promotes innovation in composition.
This research examines the impact of specific natural ventilation options on the architectural synthesis of floor plan, section and façade. In particular, the influence refers to the optical configuration and the architectural organization of each drawing in combination with each natural ventilation case. Notable conclusions are derived, while the emerging remarks can be useful for the synthesis of diverse architectural systems.