An experimental study was conducted in a room resembling an office in a laboratory environment. The study involved investigating the ability of corner-placed stratum ventilation in order to evaluate the ventilation's effectiveness and local thermal comfort. At fixed positions, the air temperature, air velocity, turbulence intensity, and tracer gas decay measurements were carried out. The results show that corner-placed stratum ventilation behaves very similar to a mixing ventilation system when considering air change effectiveness. The performance of the system was better at lower supply air flow rates for heat removal effectiveness. For the heating cases, the draught rates were all very low, with the maximum measured value of 12%. However, for the cooling cases, the maximum draught rate was 20% and occurred at ankle level in the middle of the room.SV was proposed by Lin as a response to the requirements of some governments in East Asia for operating indoor spaces at elevated temperatures in order to conserve energy [9][10][11]. The new recommended indoor air temperatures have been set to (26-28 • C) in the Republic of Korea, (26 • C) in Chinese mainland, (25.5 • C) Hong Kong, (27 • C) Taiwan and (28 • C) in Japan for summers [12]. Since conventional ventilation systems are incapable of efficiently providing thermal neutrality in warm conditions, SV was devised to serve that purpose. The ventilation system is aimed at coping with higher room temperature and air movement and has been found suitable for cooling small to medium rooms [13]. Lin et al. [10] stated that with a properly designed supply air velocity and volume, location of diffusers and exhausts, SV has potential to maintain better thermal comfort with a smaller vertical temperature difference, lower energy use and better indoor air quality (IAQ) in the breathing zone. In addition, a comparison of the mean air temperatures in the occupied zone confirmed that SV offered the highest cooling efficiency, followed by DV, and in last place, mixing ventilation (MV) [14].SV draws on the strength of personalized ventilation systems. Personalized or task ventilation systems have been ranked as the most energy efficient and provide the best air quality in the breathing zone. However, such systems are inadequate because only limited ductwork can be installed in the occupied zone to avoid obstructions. Besides the limited ductwork, task ventilation systems cannot adequately cater for the mobile occupants within the occupied zone. SV supplies fresh air directly into the occupied zone in order to overcome the shortcomings of the task ventilation system while retaining the benefits of better indoor air quality and energy performance [15]. For example, owing to its low nonlinearity and fast response, the SV system can be used to offer differentiated air velocity, temperature and predicted mean vote (PMV) distributions to cater for individual occupant preferences in shared spaces [16,17].The underlying operation principle of the SV system is the supply of fresher air dire...

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In hot climates, such as sub-Sahara Africa, window sizing and orientation pose challenges as they add, through solar insolation, to the building cooling energy demand and thus the cause of indoor overheating risk. This risk can be reduced through passive building-design-integrated measures, e.g., optimizing the window size, orientation and solar shading strategies. Through an IDA-ICE building performance simulation tool, the current study explores the impact of window size, optimization and building-integrated PV panels as shading strategies on cooling energy demands in three cities (Niamey, Nairobi and Harare) in sub-Sahara Africa. Results show that thermal comfort and cooling energy demand are sensitive to a window-to-wall ratio (WWR) > 70%, while the need for artificial lighting is negligible for a WWR > 50%, particularly in the north for cities in the Southern hemisphere and the south in the Northern hemisphere. A WWR > 70% in the east and west should be avoided unless shading devices are incorporated. Internal blinds perform better in improving occupant thermal comfort but increase artificial lighting while integrating PV panels, as external shading overhangs reduce cooling energy but also produce energy that can be utilized for building services, such as air conditioning. In this study, the results and implications of the optimization of window size, orientation and building-integrated shading and operation are discussed.