TY - BOOK AU - Jumawan, Hazel U. AU - Juanga, Jean Marie V. TI - Analysing the passive cooling performance of natural ventilation system design mimicked from solar-powered African termite mounds for varied building configurations PY - 2020/// KW - Architectural Design IX: Research Project in Architecture KW - ARCH191 KW - Architectural design X: Architectural Design Project KW - ARCH192 N2 - Urban development is accompanied by large-scale construction of midrise and high-rise projects. Along with this is the need to power these buildings, most often through mechanical means. Consequently, the building and construction industry are accountable for 36% of the global energy consumption and 40% of CO2 emissions. This study aims to address this issue through exploring the application of a biomimetic approach to building ventilation. The concept of biomimicry has come from the concept that nature has confronted similar problems faced by the human society, and it has created sustainable solutions that have been filtered through millions of years of evolution. The main objective of the study is to analyze the efficiency of a natural ventilation system design inspired from the solar-powered African termite mounds (ATM) for varied building configurations using a computer simulation software (IES VE 2019). The simulation results of the study show that air movement in the ATM-inspired natural ventilation system design did not coincide with the expected results following the solar heat-driven ventilation mechanism in termite mounds. The results of the CFD simulation for interior wind velocity show that there are slower wind velocities in the ATM-inspired simulation models compared to the conventional model, from 0 to 0.55 mLs and greater than 1.2 mLs in some areas. The operative temperature in the interior hallways of the ATM-inspired design models are significantly lower than those in the conventional model. From the data gathered, it can be concluded that the diurnal thermal cycles of air flow in African termite mound do not occur similarly in midrise and high-rise buildings incorporated with ventilation system inspired from African termite mounds. Although interior wind velocity is greater in the conventional models for all building footprints, the ATM-inspired natural ventilation system design resulted to lower temperatures in the interior hallways of the building with no exterior openings ER -