Use of an Atrium for the Passive-Solar Retrofit of an Office Building: Design and Installation Experience

摘要

A clerestory window system has been installed over a courtyard in an existing two-story office building/museum at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, thus creating an atrium. This atrium serves as a passive solar heating and daylighting system for the building and provides new display space for the museum. The retrofit consists of a roof-mounted clerestory window system with night insulating shutters which: forms an atrium that provides new museum space, buffers the former courtyard walls and windows, preheats ventilation air for the entire building, and provides daylighting and heating for the new museum space. The passive system is coupled to the heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system of the surrounding building by inducing fresh-air makeup through the solar-tempered atrium; heating, cooling, and daylighting are addressed in the design. The design process, the use of the DOE-2 building energy analysis computer program during design, and the construction of the atrium are described. (ERA citation 07:056592)