Adaption of a Tropical Passive House as Holistic Approach

Abstract

Based on the common Passive House role model, the paper elaborates and focuses on distinctive elements that can assist to pave the way for its urgent tropical adaptation on the way to combat climate change by 2050. Several attempts have been made in tropical countries to conduct green mock-up research on which parameters can better withstand the heat and humidity. Walls, windows, roofs, and even shadings have been tested in mainly so-called contrived experiments. The challenge of a tropical holistic Passive building is to bring ALL those relevant parameters into play in different seasonal and weather situations whilst expelling the interference of the hot outside air. In principle, this is happening anyway for most commercial buildings and Passive Houses in all other hemispheres alike, but it is not common for tropical residential building strategies which are in the focus of this paper. Based on this integral approach in Malaysia with sidelines of Singapore, the author can refer back to a database of 250 days. He cross-examined mainly data out of 4 typically hot months in the year 2017 in detail with 3 adjacent real mini-residential Passive and 1 "red" House(s) with the same positioning for ambient temperature and the most vulnerable part of the building envelope which is the window. Out of the real hot months studies we receive indications that the well insulated, basically almost airtight and optimum shaded building with ventilation is cooler in almost all cases during the wet and the increasing number of transition periods. It is the most humid one, due to the lack of a moisture barrier which was not timely yet. The Passive Holistic design will work best i.e. energy efficiently in a combination of a) nighttime active usage of green cooling (i.e. cross ventilation or water-based cooling ceilings). During b) daytime, among other related modules looked in, cooling is based upon passive envelope features PLUS shading. For various reasons, compared to buildings in the colder hemisphere (such as tropical thin building envelope and no triple glazing), the payback of the Tropical Mass Residential Passive House comparing OPEX and CAPEX is reasonable with 5-6 years.